The Green You Need
by Morte Rouge
Summary: A spoiled-rotten prince is booted out of the family and travels to New Orleans to woo himself a rich Southern belle. Think you know this story? You haven't heard it from the frog's mouth.
1. Calibri

**I. CALIBRI**

HER HAIR WAS RED-GOLD, like honey on toast—a startling contrast to her skin, which was olive-toned and as smooth and flawless as one. Or so he said. He used culinary metaphors, he said, because they made him all the hungrier. For her.

She was like the interior of a seashell, smooth and flawless and a dark brown color that was more purple than pink, or was it the other way around? This everyone said. She knew it to be true. And her smile—whispered behind her back—her smile was the seashell's edge, as pink and smooth, as sensuous and sharp.

Tonight, Calibri smiled, and those who best knew her were afraid.

She was furious.

In Maldonia the pleasure-domes secreted throughout the big cities were considered, archaically, a taboo topic for respectable women, and for men to discuss with respectable women. But among themselves the _domen_, the girls employed at the pleasure-domes, knew no forbidden territory in conversation among one another, none. She was annoyed. Shouldn't she have found out much sooner, as a result?

The Saubehus was the best pleasure-dome in Maldonia's capital city of Brima—in the entire country, surely!—and Calibri was its crown jewel.

_And speaking of crown jewels…_Had she spoken the thought aloud, it would have emerged as a venomous hiss.

Once the prize beauty of a pleasure-dome was attached to a man as his mistress, he was no longer considered free to consort with other domen in the same pleasure-dome, let alone with employees of another. It was a sort of inverted marriage contract; while it lasted, the man was pledged as if in blood—while the mistress might have any number of patrons she chose at a time.

Calibri fumed, her cheeks flushing to nearly the same brilliance as her fiery hair. Herri had pledged himself to _her_. He had told her she was like honey, bread, olives—one sweet, one essential, one a Maldonian speciality—and now! Now…

Now she wondered how many other domen had been told similar things. Hair smooth and brown as polished mahogany. Cheeks like precious peonies. A voice as melodious as—what had he called it?—a clarinet, what an unmusical name for an instrument! Curls like the round-dimpled pattern in a new wheel of butter. Calibri amused herself—for lack of a better word—with such similes for a while, but quickly returned her attention to the matter at hand.

Scorn, like acid, washed away again any amusement she might have briefly garnered. How _dare_ he betray her, Calibri, the most expensive and attractive doma in the country! And not even with those who ranked beneath her in the Saubehus; that would have been a logical (if undesirable) transgression. No, instead, as she had discovered, there was hardly a pleasure-dome in Brima—_and_ a few of the surrounding cities—which did not boast Harri's patronage to its best doma. What kind of man was Harri, to have the arrogance which went hand-in-hand with the _wealth_ required to support so many domen?

Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—Calibri knew.

Harri was not Harri. Harri was, in fact, better known to the public as His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Naveen of Maldonia, etc., etc. Calibri had used the rest of his titles and names, everybody knew them, as a mantra, to calm herself while the little maid, her tongue loosened by coin, rattled on about how she was only a poor maid, miss, only there to deliver a note from the Prince, and not knowing the Prince in the way that miss did, miss, and so, please, not to harm her. After all, hadn't she told miss everything she knew?

Calibri was satisfied that she had; and, paying the terrified girl for her silence, dismissed her and ripped the note open. It was apologetic; he would be later than usual that afternoon, and hoped she would forgive him. It was the royal seal, obviously set to the envelope in a moment of hasty indiscretion, which had betrayed its sender to Calibri.

She knew almost instantly that she had been right to bribe the girl into silence. If Harri—or rather, the _Prince_—was going to be late, she had time. Smoothing her creamy dress down with her hands, with a serenity of manner (and of course, of smile) that belied the plan swiftly forming within her mind, Calibri crossed the room and picked up the telephone receiver.

.:..:..:.

ONE HOUR AND FORTY-THREE MINUTES later, Prince Naveen bounded up the steps of the Saubehus in an excellent frame of mind. He knew Calibri would pout coquettishly at how very late he was, but surely he could convince her to forgive him his tardiness. And, if he failed the first time, why then, he could try again, and again…The smile, white as pearls, which caused visiting princesses to hyperventilate, flashed across his face.

As to why he was late…Just as Naveen had changed into normal, commoner's clothes—a far cry from the braid and gilding and itchiness that characterized formal, royal wear—his personal butler, Laurence, had entered carrying a curiously shaped package, which Naveen seized upon at once.

He'd dashed off a quick note to Calibri, the afternoon's doma. Ripping the brown parcel paper away, Naveen regarded the ukulele in his hands with all the reverence of a little boy with his first set of toy soldiers (a simile Naveen could personally attest to). It was much, much smaller, and higher-pitched, than a guitar, but certainly easier to carry down the street than a guitar, or a clarinet, or saxophone, or piano, or tuba or trumpet—most of which Naveen himself knew how to play. They were all instruments which were used by "jazz" players in New Orleans, America. This jazz music was very different from anything Naveen had heard before; and, in the way of young adults, loved it as much as his parents were annoyed by it. Someday he was going to travel to New Orleans incognito, bringing all his instruments, and play in a band on the streets; maybe he'd break a few hearts while he was there.

It would be amusing to see their faces—the women, the jazz players—if he revealed his identity. But then, the fun of keeping it all a secret would be gone. He was already practicing this, after all—his parents and everyone else in Maldonia had some idea of his amorous adventures, but no one knew how much he ran around. In the pleasure-dome districts he disguised himself, giving a different name—Calibri knew him as Harri, for example—and he was very careful not to confuse either his own names, or those of his paramours. (He would have to stop acquiring for now, though—already six were hard to manage.) He wanted to make quite sure no woman in Maldonia could brag of having cavorted with their Crown Prince, as much for his own sake as for that of his parents and small brother.

Naveen had cheerfully leaned back in his chair and picked out, first chords and then tunes by ear, for a long time; then, almost reluctantly, he set it aside, jammed his cap onto his head and set off to meet Calibri.

He was still picking at the ukulele strings, in his head, when the hallway door opened and Calibri pulled him in.

She was almost violent, tugging at his clothing, and Naveen was the last person in the world to protest her urgency. Within seconds, tugging was no longer necessary. On either side.

It seemed hours and hours later (though it was only a matter of minutes) before the flashbulbs went off, like big round eyes, like frog's eyes perched atop the reporter's cameras, blinking at the pencils which buzzed like insects over pads of paper, opening and closing, opening and closing, opening

**_Next: A RUDE AWAKENING, _in which Naveen reaps the wild oats he's sown for years.**


	2. A Rude Awakening

**II. A RUDE AWAKENING**

HE AWOKE SLOWLY, reveling in the warmth of the bed. He lay on his stomach, his head was turned sideways; not only was his nose mashed into the pillow in a way that made it distinctly difficult to breathe, awake, but he was sure to have a horrible neck-ache as soon as he got up. He didn't have to open his eyes to know that.

Perhaps Calibri could massage it away. He smiled a little in comfortable anticipation, his hand moving instinctively to where she should be, curled up inches away.

She wasn't.

Naveen bolted straight up in bed. (His neck didn't hurt.) The thought of Calibri had been followed, sluggishly, by the last time he'd seen her, and—and he was in his bed in the castle, not in Calibri's Saubehus flat at all. He groaned at the thought of those reporters. All those reporters, and what they meant.

The game was up. In almost every pleasure-dome in the kingdom, there'd be a doma baying for his blood. And Naveen was pretty sure no other pleasure-dome would accept his custom now, even as their Crown Prince.

He said nothing to Laurence as the older man puttered about, instructing the valet and other servants. He tried not to think as his valet dressed him in court attire: cream doublet and red fitted pants.

And then, walking down the corridor to the banquet hall, he thought. And thought again. And finally said something. "_Faldi faldonza_!"

If all the domen in Maldonia had read the newspaper, then everybody else in the country had as well. "Everybody else" included, presumably, his parents. Who were already upset with his exorbitant spending and partygoing. Naveen could think of a few more, stronger, words he wanted to use, but the massive oak doors were opened and the herald announced him to his parents. No need to make matters worse by swearing in their presence.

Without guests to entertain, the King and Queen of Maldonia neglected their customary seats, one at each end. Instead, Andalus and Aharoni sat companionably beside each other. Queen Aharoni was calmly spreading marmalade onto an already-buttered slice of bread, but Naveen's father was…Naveen blanched. _Reading the newspaper._

Much as Naveen's scandal was front-page-worthy, Naveen could see that the front page was completely devoid of any of the…photographs…of him which had been taken the night before, probably out of deference to the ladies who chose to ignore, and the children they kept from, news of such a scandal.

King Andalus turned a page.

"Good morning, Naveen, dear. Come sit down. And how did my little _fragee pruto_ sleep last night?" Aharoni added, referring to her older son's childhood nickname. _De Fragee Pruto_—the story of a frog kissed by a princess, causing him to turn into a prince_—_had been his favorite fairy tale once, and certainly he had leapt around like a frog as an exuberant child. Or so, Naveen assumed wryly, the servants had told her. Neither his mother nor his father had ever spent much time around Naveen, especially after Nik was born six years ago.

Now Naveen was an adult, twenty years old. He no longer was interested in fairytales, with all their girlish hopes and fanciful dreams-come-true. And he resented his mother's way of giving him little nicknames and endearments—especially in public, as if she wanted to hear people say, "Oh, what a loving, attentive mother Queen Aharoni must be!"

"I slept well, Mother."

Nik, who had a way of popping up unexpectedly when he was being thought of, literally did just that, bursting out from underneath the table. There was more jam on his face than on the scone he held. "Naveen!"

"Hey, Nik." Naveen scooped up his younger brother in his arms, jam and all. As a rule, Naveen disliked kids—they were so loud and messy and just _annoying_—but Nik, though he was all of those things, was Naveen's brother, and Naveen made, or could not help making, an exception for the boy.

"Naveen, Naveen, did you see all the stars last night? Tim and I couldn't sleep, it was so bright outside." Tim was Nik's personal servant, the son of servants, and was a small red-haired boy about Nik's age. "I asked Tim what the stars were, and he said they were fireflies. But I think that's sort of stupid, 'cause how would fireflies get up there? Tim says they flew all the way up and got stuck in that big, black-blue thing, the—the, the sky. And—"

"_Achidanza! _Nik, let your brother sit down and eat something." It should have been a tender rebuke, but Nik and Naveen both flinched at King Andalus's reprimand. "Good morning, Naveen."

"Good morning, sir." Naveen, setting his brother down, saw the way Nik's face fell, turned inwards like a failed soufflé. It was a mirror image of what Naveen's face must have been in his father's presence, fourteen years ago, and maybe even more recently that.

But Andalus's harsh tones were nothing out of the ordinary, and Naveen could breathe. His father must not have gotten to the juicy news yet.

As usual, breakfast, save for Nik's occasional boyish questions and tangential stories, was a silent affair. This keyed Naveen up more than ever at first, though. WHERE was the article? When would his father read it?

Finally, Andalus set the paper down with an unconscious sigh, and Naveen nearly leaped out of his chair with a happy anxiety: There was no way that article could be in the paper if his father was still this calm! Had Calibri bribed the reporters? Thank God for her! She must have forgiven him his deception, then!

Good girl. Naveen resolved to go to see her that day, and throw a party in her flat at night. He finished his breakfast in high spirits, carrying on a conversation with Nik—who refused to believe that fireflies didn't get stuck in the sky—and then, with a breezy "Good morning, Sir—Mother—Nik," he all but danced out of the banquet hall, so light were his feet and his spirits.

.:..:..:.

"SHE WON'T SEE YOU, your Highness."

"But Mamad—" protested Naveen indignantly. "You haven't even asked her. She doesn't even know I'm here."

Mamad, the woman who ran the Saubehus, shook her head. "I'm sure every one of my girls knows you're here by now. They can read, you know. Sometimes they even practice doing so," she added sarcastically, "and your antics weren't exactly published in a remote corner of the paper. None of them would have you anymore, even if you asked. Secondly, I have very good reason to speak for Calibri."

"Oh?" inquired Naveen, sarcastic in his turn—despite a sort of mounting hysteria. So it had been published after all. But then— "And what might that be?"

Mamad threw back her head and laughed. "Your Highness, you're so damn naïve for a man of the world. How do you think the reporters found out the truth about you? Calibri made a very expensive phone call last night."

"_Faldi faldonza_," gasped Naveen.

"Shut your mouth," said Mamad. "I won't have you using such language around my girls. You might…corrupt them!" Still laughing, she slammed the door in his face.

"And _abinaza_ to you too," muttered Naveen, slamming his hat back on his head and climbing back into his car. He was going to go straight back to the palace…and hide in his room. Under the bedcovers. Maybe even under the bed. Anywhere, as long as no one found him until this embarrassment was over.

He had no such luck.

"Sire!" Laurence came hurrying down the steps as Naveen drove up.

"Ah, Laurence," Naveen sighed, relieved. "My car's gotten dirty this morning. Tell—tell whoever washes the cars around here to do it, and soon. I need it this afternoon. Or, damn it, maybe I'll just take another car—"

"But _sire_—"

Naveen wasn't listening; he was already halfway upstairs.

He spent the next hour constructing a pillow fort on his bed. Childlike, yes; but Naveen wanted to reconstruct, as well, the feeling of complete security, of invincibility, which he had experienced inside such forts as a child.

Laurence, who had spent the hour first giving the servants the order, and then looking for Naveen, poked his head inside Naveen's suite to see a pair of brown eyes regarding him condescendingly from between fluffy white pillows. "Sire!"

"Whawrence?!"

"I beg your pardon, Sire?"

One of the pillows erupted off the top of the fort, and Naveen poked his head out. "WHAT is it, Laurence?" he repeated angrily.

"Sire, your father summoned you to the throne room as soon as you arrived home!" puffed Laurence, his eyes bulging out of his head in anxiety.

"_Faldi faldonza_," said Naveen.

.:..:..:.

KING ANDALUS FLUNG A newspaper at his son's feet. Naveen didn't dare leave it there, but once in his hands, he didn't dare look at the article either.

"Three years, Naveen! For three years, your mother and I have turned a blind eye, thinking, hoping that this was merely a coming-of-age phase, that you would eventually settle down, with or without _one woman_ in your life, perhaps even do something _useful_," Andalus dragged the word out sarcastically, "such as get a job or be philanthropic. And you don't even have the decency to be idle. You're busy wasting your time, and the money in the royal treasury, on loose women and exorbitant parties, never anything beneficial to anyone—even to you. Well? Have you anything to say in your, ah, _defense_?"

"Sir," said Naveen, utterly cowed, "sir, why didn't you say anything at breakfast?" If he had, the lecture might—_might_—have been done by now, and he could have got on with things.

Andalus shook his head rapidly, as though resisting the undignified, unroyal urge to fly across the throne room and strangle his older son. "I had _hoped_," he drew out the last word, beginning to pace back and forth before his throne, "that, being as it is that you know a great deal more about what happened last night than your mother and I do, you would have had the courage to confess it to one or both of us yourself, before we could hear it from an outside source.

"But we watched you throughout the meal, and you were completely unrepentant, even lighthearted. You showed no sign that you realized the magnitude of your actions.

"Naveen! You are my eldest son! The Crown Prince of Maldonia! The whole country would have looked to you someday! Now they, as well as I, am wondering how you could ever have handled a kingdom, when you were too busy chasing after every skirt you saw!"

A quiet, almost hysterical doubt began to grow within Naveen. "'Would,' sir?"

Andalus stopped pacing and looked at his eldest son. The anger in his eyes was infused with something very different, but Naveen did not see it. Nor would he have recognized it as heartbreak suppressed by a much stronger sense of duty and indignation. "Your mother and I have agreed that it is best to cut you off."

"…what?!" said Naveen. It was almost an unmanly screech. "Sir, do you mean…financially?"

"Financially," his father agreed. "And familially, as well. The Royal family of Maldonia will not recognize you as its son. As of this moment, Nik is the Crown Prince of Maldonia. Sir," Andalus addressed Naveen, surprising him, "if you have no further business here, you may now depart."

**_Next: UNBELIEVABLE WEALTH_, in which Naveen does something very stupid. (Or does he?)**


	3. Unbelievable Wealth

**III. UNBELIEVABLE WEALTH**

_HE WAS AT A JAZZ PERFORMANCE of some sort, but the drummer had mistaken Naveen's head for his drums, and was pounding away. Naveen tried to explain the situation to the man, and begged him to stop, but the drummer only laughed and handed him to the tambourine player, who shook him about until, jingling, Naveen thought he might be sick—_

He sat bolt upright in bed—and instantly bashed his skull against…a sagging bunk? Cradling his head (which had apparently been aching even before the blow), Naveen squinted around himself, trying to take in his surroundings.

The wall to his left was coarse wood planking; judging from the snores and the sagging mattress above him, Laurence had chosen the top bunk—the fool. Trunks and suitcases which Naveen recognized as his own were strewn over the rest of the floor. The room persisted in swaying alarmingly; or was Naveen the one swaying? After all, he was, he realized, in the middle of possibly the biggest hangover he'd ever had.

Pictures began to form in his head, despite the pounding of his temples. Calibri's face. The flashbulbs. Nik and his mother. His father's face—his father's words—

After that, Naveen's memory went rather foggy. He had gone back to his room. He had dived under his bed and dragged out trunks, suitcases, portmanteaus—and a bottle of Champagne. He had finished off the Champagne, reached for another bottle, reached for a third, and seriously considered setting the bed (pillow fort and all) afire. He had thrown—who knew what—into said trunks and portmanteaus, and had a vague memory of trying to stuff Laurence into one. Naveen chuckled—which was a mistake, since the sound nearly rattled his head off. But his memory was beginning to clear (even if his furry-feeling tongue was not).

He had then sneaked—or was it snuck? Probably the actual word didn't matter, considering it was actually very hard to be furtive when drunk—out of the palace, Laurence (and his bags) in tow, and tied everything into the trunk of a cab, blithely informing the chauffeur that he, Naveen, Crown Prince of Maldonia (accept no substitutes), was running away from home; was going, in fact, to New Orleans—yes, that's right, in America, with the lovely jazzy music—and that the chauffeur must tell all his chauffeur friends, especially the chauffeur friends who cleaned the cars at the royal palace.

Naveen lay down again. He pulled the coarse wool blanket back over his face. He hoped the memories were just another part of his hangover dreams. He really, really, hoped that Laurence had kidnapped him. Or something. Then Naveen wouldn't feel quite as irredeemably idiotic.

Still. New Orleans, after all. Naveen could do everything he'd planned to do before. He could host lavish parties—composed primarily of female guests and based in his hotel suite, of course. Either that or lavish masquerade affairs, in the hotel ballroom—in a room full of masked partygoers, no one cared if one more mysterious couple (or two or three or four, if Naveen was present!) disappeared into the shadows. He could, as well, wander the streets pretending to be a commoner, as he so often had back h—back in Maldonia. (For now, Naveen refused to think of the country he had been born in, and born _to_, as "home.") He could enter into seemingly chaste and "romantic" affairs with richly dressed Southern belles which would turn into _real_ affairs, and—no, he couldn't. The Americans, he remembered, did as much to disassociate themselves with seductive, licentious Europe as possible, and as a result, the fathers who owned beautiful daughters had a deuced unsporting habit of owning powerful guns, too. But he could still do all those other things.

He said as much to Laurence when the older man awoke and joined him in washing and dressing. But Laurence raised a bushy gray eyebrow. "Sire? Your father cut you off, you may remember. Otherwise we should not be traveling in such crude estate. I was quite forced to barter passage for us with my own small earnings, Sire, and—"

"We'll see about that," retorted Naveen. He didn't need to hear any more; after four years knowing the older man, Naveen could understand and speak Laurence fluently. He flung aside the khaki slacks he had been looking forward to wearing, and held out the dreaded doublet lacings to his butler.

.:..:..:.

_THWAP!_

The captain of the ship was understandably startled to see the accusing finger planted right in the middle of his maps. He jerked his pencil out of the way. "May I help you, sir?" he stuttered.

Before the captain stood a man whose noble bearing would have been obvious, even were he not dressed as a prince. "Captain, what is the meaning of this? As a royal personage, I was absolutely appalled when I awoke this morning and found that my lowly manservant and myself were consigned to such rude passage." (This was an example of speaking Laurence, and it was certainly devilishly handy.)

The captain, bewildered, blinked myopically up at the prince through round spectacles. He didn't even remember this prince boarding the ship. Surely he would have _remembered _the arrival of such an important guest! However, he waved his utter confusion aside momentarily. Right now, his main priority was making this prince happy, so that he decided to be generous with his tips—"Sir, I mean, Your Highness, I'm certainly sorry for the mistake, but if you and your servant were put in steerage, it is likely you only paid so much when you boarded. No one in their right mind could have mistaken _you_ for a lowly man, sir," he tacked on obsequiously.

There was a slight tightening around the prince's eyes, as though he was trying not to laugh amiably—but in reality Naveen was forcibly suppressing an eye roll.

"Anyways, should you pay in full now, Your Highness, you will find yourself speedily moved to our best suite, which is providentially empty, and with the sincerest of apolo—"

"Pay?!" thundered the prince. "PAY?! Captain, do you know NOTHING of royalty and their customs? A prince does not carry money around on his person! He is already at risk of mortal peril by the mere fact of his BIRTH without showcasing his status to the less fortunate, do you see?!"

The accusing finger was descending towards the hapless captain again, but it was unnecessary; the point was taken. "Yes, Your Highness."

"Good man. Captain, my—bankers in America will pay you once we have safely made port. Now see to it that my possessions and my servant are moved accordingly."

"Yes, Your Highness. And, your Highness—"

"Huh?" Naveen, who had been striding away grinning, swiveled back around, pasting the Outraged Prince look back onto his face.

"May I write ahead and tell the newspapers that a prince is visiting? You know America has never had its own royalty, and—"

"Yes, yes." Naveen was so gratified that finally SOMEONE was asking his permission to publish his doings in the news, that he dismissed the question with an affirmative wave of his hand, never thinking of how much more difficult it was going to be to get off of the ship unnoticed.

The sea breeze abovedecks cleared Naveen's head considerably; he leaned against the railing and stared out at the deep blue expanse of water around them, his satisfied smile fading. He'd wrangled comfortable (and free, considering he _had_ no bankers in America, or anywhere else, and would have to run like the dickens once they landed; that might be difficult with Laurence in tow) passage to America, but what could he possibly do once there? With no money?

No money. No hotel. No parties. No women _at all_; surely even in America, prostitutes weren't bought for a song, and of course all of those rich beauties would never associate with a—

Those rich beauties.

Those _rich_ beauties.

Those filthy-stinking-rich Southern belles. Rolling in green and gold. Probably even wearing dresses made out of money—hey, who knew what Americans would do? They were an odd lot.

BUT THEY WERE RICH.

And after all, as they said, money covered a multitude of sins.

Naveen's mental jazz band burst into "Dipper Mouth Blues," one of his favorites.

That was it! That was exactly the answer!

Naveen might be disinherited, but he was still a prince! And no one needed to know that first part. The beginning of his plan was even already taken care of; by the time he arrived in New Orleans, everybody would know about, and want to meet, this Prince Naveen of Maldonia. From there, everything would be easy as…well…as a doma.

But there was no one for Naveen to confide his plans in but Laurence. And that was hardly inspiring. After all, all Laurence ever did was be a party-pooper. He was sure to shoot down Naveen's ambitions with cruel logic. Or _reason_. Naveen shuddered.

"You do realize, sire, that you have another option?"

Was today an exception?

"I DO?!" Naveen dropped a trunk lid on his hand. Hard. "_Faldi faldonza_…What is it, then?"

"You could get…" Laurence paused, in a poor attempt to be dramatic. "…A job."

"Bleargh," said Naveen eloquently. As far as he was concerned, that was the best summation of Laurence's "option." "Bleargh," he repeated. "But then I would have no time to have FUN! And that is the POINT!

"I would be…doing _work_…and getting my hands and clothes _dirty_…and I would be _tired_ all the time. Even at night. The ladies, Laurence, they do not like to see dirty men. And," he smirked, "they like a man who stays awake at night."

"But SIRE!" Laurence nearly dropped his own small bag in holy horror. "Should you marry a New Orleans lady, you must remember that she is exactly that. A _lady_. A lady will expect a great deal from her husband. Such as…" another weakly dramatic pause "…fidelity."

"_Achidanza_! Laurence, you worry too much. My life will be easy-peasy when I'm a Southern lady's husband." Who cared about "fidelity," whatever that was? It was four syllables, and Naveen had left his dictionary in Maldonia.

But he had brought his ukulele! Naveen snatched it up with a peal of triumphant laughter, forgiving himself for having gotten drunk. Everything was going to be just fantastic; Laurence just needed to learn how to live free and easy. "Everything is going to be just fantastic, Laurence," said Naveen aloud. "You just need to learn how to live free and easy!"

"How can I," muttered Laurence, "when I have a master, and a master as spoiled as YOU?"

His eyes bulged out of his gorilla face as he looked up suddenly, anxiously, wondering whether he had spoken quite aloud or not.

But it didn't matter. Naveen was busy tuning his ukulele.

_**Next: ESTELLA, in which Naveen has a run-in with another female.**_


	4. Estella

**IV. ESTELLA**

THE SHIP STOPPED AT SEVERAL ports, both European and American, along the way, and despite both the departure and arrival of passengers, the number of female travelers—both European and American—increased at each stop. But Naveen behaved himself. He certainly wasn't the only passenger headed for New Orleans, no matter how many people had already left the boat, and he didn't want any infamous reports to precede him.

But then he met Estella.

He'd been standing on deck, leaning against the railing. As an inhabitant of an inland country, Naveen had never seen the sea before his flight from the palace, and now it was all around him. The first time Naveen'd seen the sea—right after his encounter with the ship's captain—he'd been too worried about money to appreciate it. But a week later…

If Naveen could ever be said to be truly in love with anything, he reflected with a small smile, the sea was it. That word, "love," was a dangerous word to him, more dangerous than "commitment" or "engagement" or, worse, "marriage." (Only one importunate woman had been foolish enough to say it to him, and he had left her bed faster than Nik confronted with a bar of soap.) And he never used it, unless you counted loving your family, which as far as he was concerned amounted to just Nik, anyways. It wasn't as though he really knew his parents well enough to feel anything as powerful as love for them, although just now, he was pretty sure he hated his father.

But the sea was lovable. The blueness of the water, the lonely shriek of the occasional seagull, the saltiness of the sea spray on his lips, the infinity of the horizon, all intoxicated him more effectively than a good bottle of wine or a beautiful woman—almost.

The breeze tickled his spirits and he pulled his cap off so it could ruffle his curly brown hair, too. Running his fingers through the tousled mess, he closed his eyes, aching from looking and looking at the sea and sky, so that he could better enjoy the sounds of the waves, and the coolness of the breeze, and…the slow warm wetness dribbling down his hand. Naveen opened his eyes and looked down.

Two big, brown eyes met his. The dog's jowls curved up around the edges in what might have passed for a dog's tongue-lolling, panting smile, had its mouth not been full of Naveen's cap. Then, taking effective advantage of Naveen's surprise, it yanked the cap easily out of his slackened grip and trotted off with it.

Naveen gaped after the dog for a moment, suddenly uttered a useless "Hey!", and ran after it. The dog itself was not running, but the deck was crowded, and people made space for a friendly dog more willingly than they did for each other.

By the time a gasping Naveen—who wasn't sure whether he was amused or exasperated by the incident—had caught up to the furry thief it had returned to its master. The dog had its forepaws on the large man's knee as if begging; its tail thumped the deck with joy as it dropped the now-slobbery cap into his lap.

"Why, that's very sweet of you to fetch me, Estella," the man was saying. "But it may be the man you took it from wants it back."

"Sir," panted Naveen. It was all he could say for the moment, he was so short of breath.

The man beamed up at Naveen. "And here he is now! I'm terribly sorry about your cap, sir. Estella does like to make mischief. I can repay you for the damage done."

The offer of money was tempting, but Naveen was disarmed by the man's sincerity. "No, no, that's fine." He took his cap back and wrung it out. "See? No harm done. No damage, either." He placed the cap back on his head. "Thank you anyway, Mr.—?"

"La Bouff." The man stuck out a hand as beefy as his name. "Mr. Eli La Bouff."

"Naveen," said Naveen, shaking the man's hand and watching his own disappear.

Mr. Eli La Bouff frowned. "Naveen what? You got another name?"

"Er—"

"Wait! Say, ain't you that _Prince_ Naveen fella I've been hearing's on this ship?"

"Yes, sir," replied Naveen, relieved.

"Have a seat."

Naveen sat.

"Now, where all are you going to on a ship like this?"

"I—" Naveen hesitated for obvious reasons. "I wanted to see some of the world before I assumed my role as king of Maldonia." He didn't bother to cross his fingers. "I'm currently en route to New Orleans."

"New Orleans! Why, don't that beat all! I live down in New Orleans myself," exclaimed Mr. La Bouff. "I'm just heading back down home from a business transaction in the North."

Naveen grinned. He couldn't help asking, like an eager child, "What's it like? In New Orleans, I mean. I know there's lots of jazz, and that's a reason I really wanted to go down there…"

Mr. La Bouff smiled, too. "Well, let's see. Where do I start? It's way down on the river, New Orleans is. Steamboats come by almost every day. And down in New Orleans, we're famous for pretty women and good men who deliver." He winked. "I'm sure you can appreciate the former, young man."

"Yes, sir," replied Naveen frankly, although he laughed along with the older man. But good, faithful men? As the prospect of a threat, as competition, this did not please him. "What else?"

"Waiter?" Mr. La Bouff snapped his fingers at a passing waiter. "A julep for me and for the prince here…What else? Well, there's that music you were talking about. Jazz. It's always playing, seems like—starting in the daytime and going all through the wee hours of the night. And it's a great thing to hear—makes you feel all right inside. My daughter, Charlotte, and her best friend Tiana, sure love them some jazz. Lottie goes out dancing all the time, she's a hit with the fellas, but Tiana, she says she's too busy working. Wants to start her own restaurant, see…" Mr. La Bouff trailed off, a worried crease furrowing his brow.

"Mmm," said Naveen noncommittally. Mr. La Bouff seemed to be mostly talking to himself by the end, and anyways the woes of the working class did not interest him.

But this Charlotte La Bouff. It was obvious that Mr. La Bouff was a rich man; as a prince, Naveen knew how to tell the classes apart, and Mr. La Bouff's easygoing demeanor bespoke his money as clearly as did his gentlemanly suit and hat. Maybe Charlotte was ugly or annoying or a prissy little Miss Touch-Me-Not, but Naveen filed her name and her father's away in his mind.

Mr. La Bouff shook his head suddenly, as though to clear it. "Anyways. Where was I? Telling you about jazz? Yeah, well, that's a good time right there. And then there's that voodoo mumbo-jumbo we're famous for, too. Don't you go falling for any of _that_, boy," he said warningly, shaking a finger at Naveen.

"Voodoo?" Naveen rolled the word around on his tongue. It sounded silly, but it had a strangely ominous ring to it. "What's voodoo?"

Mr. La Bouff waved a hand dismissively. "Magic, they claim. Poppycock, _I _say. There's all manner of fortune-tellers and witch doctors swarming in New Orleans. Don't trust 'em. They haven't got any good intentions, they swindle visitors." He chuckled then, dispelling some of the darkness on his face. "Oh, well. What can you do? Stay away from 'em and they don't enter into your life any, anyways. Guess they're part of New Orleans for good."

"But what do they _do_?" asked Naveen eagerly. He had a strange curiosity—almost morbid, given what he _had_ heard about voodoo so far.

"Well. If you believe such things," Mr. La Bouff sighed, "there's good magic and bad magic—but the good magic can make you sad just as easily as the bad magic, and the bad magic makes some happy, too. They have this saying in the voodoo circles," he paused for a moment, then spoke a little softer, as if afraid a witch doctor would swoop like a vulture out of the blue sky and claim him, "that no matter what you wish for, you'll get what you wanted—but lose what you had." He suddenly looked around again; laughed nervously, and wiped his sweating brow with a handkerchief. "Seems to me like that's the way of things, even without all this wishing and magic nonsense."

Mr. La Bouff peered sharply into Naveen's awed, wide eyes. "Like I said: If you believe such things. I sure hope you don't, my boy."

"Oh, no, sir," replied Naveen automatically. While he was fascinated by the idea of this voodoo magic, he wasn't sure whether or not he believed in it.

As a small child, Naveen had not been terrified of ghosts and haunts, but he _had_ believed in them. He felt much the same now: he wasn't afraid of what magic could do to him, but…surely it couldn't hurt if a fortune-teller could tell him he'd be rich again someday! Or if a witch doctor could MAKE him rich!

But Mr. La Bouff seemed satisfied. "I'm glad you've chosen to come to New Orleans, m'boy. You wanna do some living before you die, why New Orleans is the best place to do it. Especially now, in the springtime, when it's at its beautiful best! And everywhere are stately homes and mansions of the planter aristocracy—or what's left of it. We sugar barons and cotton kings. I'm a cotton millionaire, myself." He probably assumed it was the newly-arrived mint juleps Naveen was salivating over. "What do you think of that julep?"

Naveen took a big sip of the green drink. His eyes widened again. "It's delicious!"

"No need to sound so surprised, boy," Mr. La Bouff laughed. "Most things are—when they come from down South. Wait until you try gumbo, and crawdads, and beignets—

"In fact, I've got a mighty good idea. I'm sure you've got reservations or some-such with a hotel in New Orleans—but who wants to stay in a fancy-schmancy hotel? If you were a guest at my home, why, Lottie and I could show you around real well. And besides it's Mardi Gras starting this week—"

"Mardi Gras?"

"A big festival more'n a month before Easter. It's one huge party, seems like, for two weeks. Floats and costumes and all that food I was telling you about. And guess where the shindig starts? At the La Bouff masquerade ball! Why, you'd be our guest of honor!"

Naveen's head was reeling with the suddenness of his good luck. He thought wildly, in exclamation points. Somewhere to stay! With a rich man! And his daughter! TWO WEEKS OF PARTIES! A masquerade ball!

Naveen didn't need Estella's encouraging dog smile to tell him what his answer was. He set down his half-full julep glass. "I'd be more than glad to stay with you."

**_Next: DOWN IN NEW ORLEANS, _in which Naveen finally arrives in the city of his dreams.**

**Of course that's what the next chapter is SUPPOSED to be. But that's just gonna have to wait a while: until The Princess and the Frog is released on DVD/Blu-ray, unfortunately. I should have stretched out posting these first four chapters, I _know_, since now youall have to wait longer for Chapter V, but I'm just so goshdarn EXCITED! about writing this! Can you blame me?(Also it is maybe a good thing I can't really write for a while. I may even get some homework done!) ****In the meantime, I will be working on chapters that don't appear in the movie, though of course I can't post them yet. Until then, I am, as ever,**

**Your Obedient Servant,**

**M.R.**


	5. Down In New Orleans

**BOOM BABY! WOO! AHH! WE ARE SO BACK!!!**

**I'm currently watching **_**The Princess and the Frog **_**for the first time since I saw it in theaters, and am therefore trying really hard not to actually BEGIN this chapter. **

**It is very hard work. **

**See you in two hours!**

**-M.R.**

**P.S. Oh, what the hell. Here we go again!**

**V. DOWN IN NEW ORLEANS**

NAVEEN STOOD ON THE DECK of the boat and grinned. It was hard work. The muggy Southern spring air was already getting to him; his crown was heavy, and stifled as he was under three or four layers of cloth, Naveen thought he might die.

In the meantime, cameras clicked and flashed—welcome, this time. Flags and signs reading "WELCOME PRINCE NAVEEN" waved from the crowd—a colorful crowd, given that it was mostly wearing dresses: The entire female population of New Orleans, it seemed, had turned out to welcome handsome, charming, bad-boy Prince Naveen. If they only knew just how bad-boy he was. Thank goodness, they didn't know!

Several beads of sweat trickled unpleasantly down from Naveen's hair and over his temples. One went into his ear.

Naveen twitched.

_Hurry up, old man, I can't stand this for much longer!_

As if summoned by the mere thought, Laurence appeared behind Naveen, bearing his things. "Sire! I've retrieved your possessions. Where did you say we were—"

"Good man, Laurence. Finally!" and Naveen tore out of his prince's outfit, revealing his commoner's clothes. Snatching his ukulele from among the bags strapped to his butler's back, he half-danced, half-sauntered his way down the gangplank, strumming away.

"Sire!"

But Naveen was surrounded by girls, as colorful and varied as tropical butterflies. Yet they each had the same soppy, slavish expression on their faces. While Naveen appreciated the attention, he could tell the difference between the fangirls and the more earnest, daring young ladies. In short: some of them would cry over losing sight of him; others would gloat over losing their virginity to him. And none of these, he was sure, belonged to the latter group.

As for his own motives…Naveen made a point of making eye contact with every girl he could see (which took quite a while), very slyly, so as not to let the others see. Of course it would never do to have any of them suspect their expendability. (Once Laurence had tried to explain to Naveen that "dispensable" was really a better word for it. But that was all ridiculous. Garbage was dispensable. Girls were not. Laurence was just making it all sound so vulgar and tawdry. Girls were not to be thrown away. But they _were_ replaceable—expendable, in fact! And, as long as they went on being relatively _agreeable_ as to that inevitable replacement, what was the problem?)

The unmistakable sounds of jazz music suddenly reached Naveen's ears. A marching band stood out from the crowd of females like a tree among daisies, and Naveen intended to follow it. With his skillful maneuvering, born of years of practice, he made his way out of the middle of the cluster of women, still more or less dancing, and off down the street, Laurence trailing not far behind.

"Laurence, we have escaped the captain!" he cried, a little too loudly.

"Hush!" exclaimed Laurence, glancing around anxiously. "For all you know," he continued, using a tactic that had never failed to divert Naveen since childhood, "the captain of the ship is following us _RIGHT NOW._"

Naveen stopped dead in his tracks, whipping his head around. His own eyes darted back and forth as shiftily as those of a hunted rabbit; for a mad moment, Laurence almost expected Naveen's nose and ears to twitch, too. But suddenly Naveen relaxed, smiling again. "No, Laurence. I was afraid he might be, but the coast is clear."

_Too_ clear, in fact. The marching band had disappeared.

Pushing aside his disappointment, he stopped to exchange wistful glances, over Laurence's head, with two girls who giggled and blushed. Pinning them both to the spot with a sort of "I'll see _you_ later" smoldering stare, he and Laurence carried merrily on. Or at least Naveen was merry.

"Do you think," Laurence grumbled, "that all of these women want to…_marry_…you, sire—or, oh, fine, _sleep with you—_simply because you are a prince? Or is it just because of your unfailing charm and charisma?"

The sarcasm was lost on Naveen, who frowned in thought, slowing his steps. "I do not know, Laurence. I have never considered the matter before. Perhaps it is a combination. Certainly my charm has a great deal to do with it! Hm…" Naveen soon gave up, flashing his brilliant grin, first at another gaggle of girls down the street, and then at Laurence. "But they do sleep with me," he continued in a low voice, "so there is no problem, is there?"

Laurence sighed. He rolled his eyes first to the blue sky, as if consulting silently some deity there, and then pressed them closed, setting the bags and trunks down, and rubbing his hairy knuckles into his eyelids in an attempt to revive himself. As lifelong butler to Prince Naveen of Maldonia, Laurence got less sleep even than his philandering master. "Sire," he mumbled, "if you are to refresh yourself in time for the La Bouff masquerade—"

He had opened his eyes. Naveen had vanished.

.:..:..:.

IN AMERICA, NAVEEN'S GLANCES and grins, the male equivalent of come-hither, worked as well (if not better) than they had in Maldonia. No girl failed to succumb to his charming grin—except for one, who rolled her eyes and went back to her business. "Wounded—struck to the heart!" Naveen was tempted to cry, especially as he had swept his cap off his head in a burlesque, gentlemanly fashion; but as going back to her business meant bussing a café table, Naveen simply shrugged, replaced his cap, and moved on. Waitresses might be fair game, but Naveen had the sort of eye for women that some men had for horseflesh, and this one betokened a rough ride.

Chuckling at the innuendo, Naveen strode onwards, lightly strumming a jazz tune on his ukulele.

He stopped suddenly, gave his ukulele a perfunctory examination, paused, and grinned. No, it hadn't taken on unnaturally orchestral acoustics. Rather, he was—if his hearing served him aright, and he was ready to bet it was—just around the corner from a Real Live Jazz Band.

Not only would Naveen have won his bet, but they were the same band that had marched across the dock, and they were playing the same tune as Naveen'd been!

Now was his chance to be a jazz player! Barely conceiving of rejection (he was, after all, Prince Naveen of Maldonia, albeit in disguise), he leapt into their midst, strumming like the devil, and was really received with winks and smiles.

It was, Naveen soon discovered, a neighborhood group who, unlike their professional counterparts, more than welcomed a man with a song in his heart and fingers, never mind what it did to the orchestration. So when a small boy jumped in front of the band and cut himself some rug during a tune Naveen didn't recognize, Naveen couldn't help but throw his hands in the air (ukulele held securely), leap between the players, and show off his footwork too.

"Yes!" He had just accomplished the difficult feat of dancing and strumming—well—simultaneously. Naveen whooped aloud as the kid showed off right back. He sure had talent. And he, in turn, eyed Naveen's ukulele with a hungry look in his eye.

"_Achidanza_!" Naveen exclaimed, jumping off the "dance floor" and appealing to the girls around him for a second opinion. Besotted as they were, he knew they couldn't agree more. Or rather, Naveen smirked, if they agreed with him any more, it'd cause a scandal…

Oddly enough, the music, the clapping, the atmosphere, were all intoxicating enough to distract him—only a little—from the hunt. It was like being at sea again—only, he reflected with a wide grin, much noisier.

Unfortunately, it wasn't so noisy that a familiar voice couldn't be heard over the music. "Sire, I've been looking for you everywhere!"

Naveen hastily leapt back onto the dance floor. From there, it was easier to ignore the common sense his grumpy butler was sure to pelt him with. "Oh, what a coincidence, Laurence! I have been _avoiding_ you everywhere!"

Laurence did not disappoint. "We're going to be _late_ for the masquerade—!"

"Listen, Laurence." Naveen forestalled Laurence's blather with a rapturous expression. It was not entirely feigned. "Listen! Ah, it's jazz!" He spun in a circle, illustrating his joy. "It's JAZZ MUSIC! IT WAS BORN HERE! Is beautiful, no?" he added for the benefit of a few young ladies nearby, changing tone at lightning speed, that his butler might think him crazy.

"No," said Laurence dully.

Insensible to the older man's irritation, Naveen, feeling generous, tossed his ukulele to the dancing boy with a wink, and swept Laurence off his feet. "Oh, dance with me, fat man!" he teased.

Laurence, it soon transpired, did not wish to dance. "Stay loose, Laurence!" cautioned Naveen.

"We're supposed to be at the La Bouff estate by now!"

"Yes, yes, yes," Naveen prevaricated; "but first," he raised his voice and swept his cap off, "I buy everyone here a drink!"

Laurence was not as excited by this as the crowd was. "With what?!" he exclaimed, although rather more subtly than Naveen. "At this point, you have two choices: woo and marry a rich young lady—"

"You know I am going to—" winked Naveen.

"Or _get a job_," Laurence gritted out, gesturing to a man across the street. The pair watched in silence as he shoveled horse dung into a rubbish receptacle.

Naveen, who at a very young age had concluded from experience that ninety percent of a horse's anatomy was dung storage, shuddered horribly. "All right. Fine. We'll go to your masquerade ball. But first—we dance!"

"It isn't _my_—yeep!" Laurence was in Naveen's arms again, much to the hilarity of the crowd.

"For someone who cannot see his feet, you're very light on them!" Naveen complimented his butler, who pulled away one more time just as Naveen released his hand for a spin. The result was that Laurence staggered drunkenly away, crashed into the tuba player, and flew across the street with his head in the surprised man's instrument.

Naveen supposed it could have been worse. At least Laurence didn't land in the horse dung. With this cheerful thought in mind, Naveen approached his butler, quaking with laughter. "It's perfect! You finally got into the music!"

"Rrgh!" said Laurence.

"Do you get my joke?" Naveen spoke into the tuba mouthpiece, sniggering. "Because your head is…" he hesitated, unsure how to break it to the older man, "it's in the tuba."

"Get me out!" This time, Laurence's frenetic tones rang clear, despite the large brass obstruction.

Naveen sighed. "All right, all right. Hold on." With the assistance of the tuba player, the tuba came off, but Naveen and Laurence went flying across the street again, this time landing in an ungainly, dusty, sweaty heap on the corner. Although he laughed, Naveen sincerely hoped none of his female admirers had seen _that_.

For once, Laurence was in agreement with his young master. "How degrading! I've never been so humiliated—oh."

Wondering what force on earth could make Laurence subside like that, Naveen looked up.

Even if the ladies hadn't seen them land, someone had.

And what a someone. The man was tall and thin, dark-complected but with curiously purple eyes. As if to offset his eyes, he wore a dark purple suit and spats; a vest of a violent purple, but no shirt; and a scarlet cummerbund. To complete his peculiar appearance, he sported a hat which had evidently matched the suit, but was now replete with red hat-band, a white skull sign, and a lavender feather; a cane whose handle was purple blown glass; and a necklace of teeth.

"Hello," said Naveen.

_**Next: MAKING "FRIENDS," **_**in which Naveen falls in with a voodoo doctor—and learns more about the man's trade than he would really rather have wished to. As you have been waiting for. :)**


	6. Making Friends

**Raise your hand if you HATE HATE HATE adapting musical numbers for fanfiction. (raises hand)**

**-M.R.**

**P.S. The reason I love this song (besides Keith David and how creepy the song is and KEITH DAVID) is Naveen—up until he realizes he's been screwed over like nobody's business, of course. Go watch it. Up till the end he has this goofy grin on his face (despite shrunken heads and voodoo dolls and WTF IT'S SCRUMP and the Tiki Room masks which always scared the Sheetrock out of ME when I was a kid, but okay) like he's Gilbert Blythe at Green Gables or something. IT'S SO CUTE. And also kind of cuckoo.**

**P.P.S. And for those of you who object to the analogy, despite writing Gil a series of epically long fanfictions, I am never surrendering him. HE IS MINE. BAHAHA.**

**VI. MAKING "FRIENDS"**

"GENTLEMEN! _ENCHANTÉ_," GRINNED THE PECULIAR MAN, extending his cane to help Naveen up. "A tip of the hat from Dr. Facilier. How y'all doin'?"

As the man suited action to words, Naveen thought he would never go to a doctor who looked like this—that is, until Dr. Facilier placed a small lavender card in his hand. Naveen read aloud: "Tarot readings…charms, potions…dreams made real…_Achidanza_!" he breathed. Dr. Facilier was a doctor of _voodoo_!

"Were I a betting man—and I'm not, I stay away from games of chance," said Dr. Facilier, who had propelled him into a dark little courtyard as he read, "I'd wager I'm in the company of visiting royalty!" He made Naveen an elegant bow, releasing his hands.

Naveen could've been pushed over with a feather. Any regard for Mr. La Bouff's warning about voodoo quacks disappeared as quickly as did the sunlight from where they stood. As it was, no one attacked Naveen with Dr. Facilier's feathered hat, but Naveen whirled on the spot to greet Laurence, who came up short, panting with the weight of Naveen's baggage. "Laurence," he cried, "Laurence! This remarkable gentleman has just read my palm!"

"Or this morning's newspaper!" Laurence protested, pointing to the paper that protruded so obviously from the lanky man's back pocket.

Naveen, his amazement flickering, for once allowed himself to be pulled aside.

"Sire," the butler continued in a whisper, indicating Dr. Facilier, "this chap is obviously a charlatan! I suppose we move on to a less—augh!"

Whatever else Dr. Facilier was, he had unnatural hearing. "Don't you disrespect me, little man!" he had exclaimed, causing Laurence to leap in fright. "Don't you derogate—or deride—"

He jabbed his cane at the sign above a door set into the wall, and blazing skulls leapt to life under DR. FACILIER'S VOODOO EMPORIUM.

Definitely _not_ a charlatan, then.

"You're in my world now, not your world," continued Dr. Facilier, sending an inexplicable shiver up Naveen's spine, "and I've got friends on the other side."

_He's got friends on the other side…_

The sudden breeze that had blown the door wide open—revealing a dim, purply room covered in Persian carpets and silken hangings, cluttered with goodness knew what—carried an unearthly voice on it, one that repeated Dr. Facilier's odd words and made the hair on the back of Naveen's neck stand up. He shivered deliciously.

"That's an echo, gentlemen," explained the voodoo doctor as they entered. "Just something we have down here in Louisiana—a little parlour trick, don't worry."

The door shut behind them. Dr. Facilier snapped his fingers, and a round table could be seen in an alcove near the middle of the room, glowing under a just-lit, ornate lamp. "Sit down at my table, put your minds at ease," he continued; although how one's hat flying off one's head, across the room, and landing on a skull, was reassuring, Naveen didn't see. Dr. Facilier frowned.

"If you relax, it will enable me to do anything I please," he explained, seating Naveen and offering as an example: "I can read your future—I can change it round some, too! I look deep into your heart and soul, make your wildest dreams come true…

"You do have a soul, don't you, Laurence?" Dr. Facilier added, making Naveen laugh, all his tension dispelled. Winking at him, Dr. Facilier went on: "I got voodoo, I got hoodoo, I got things I ain't even tried," gesturing to the brightly colored, pinstuck rag dolls, dead chicken, and small brass box that currently occupied the table. When he opened the lid of the last, bright orange flame erupted from it, and he slammed it shut!

"—and I got friends from the other side."

The echoes emanated, or seemed to, from ornately carved heathen masks hung above Naveen and Laurence. Fascinated as he was by the wonders around him, Naveen felt like a child at a festival.

"The cards," said Dr. Facilier finally, cutting and shuffling them fantastically, "will tell the past, the present, and the future as well. Just take three, and take a little trip into your future with me."

Naveen picked three of the facedown cards eagerly, nudging Laurence into reluctantly following suit. Dr. Facilier examined Naveen's first, spreading them upon the table facedown. He turned up the first, a castle. "Now you, young man, are from across the sea; you come from two long lines of royalty…I'm a royal myself, on my mother's side," he smirked, displaying a gruesome shrunken head before moving on to the second card, a prince at court. "Your lifestyle's high…but your funds are low. You need to marry a little honey whose daddy got dough." He peered up at Naveen. "Momma and daddy cut you off, eh, playboy?"

"Eh. Sad, but true," shrugged Naveen, laughing off his faint unease at how on earth he was going to fix that if his fortune spelled bad news. Dr. Facilier shuffled the tarot deck.

"Now you gotta get hitched—but hitching ties you down. You just wanna be free, hop from place to place, but freedom takes _green_." He passed his hand over the tarot cards, and they suddenly resembled "green"—American bank notes, greenish in tinge. "It's the green you need, and when I looked into your future it's the green that I seen!"

Dr. Facilier handed him the final tarot card (a man surrounded by gold) with a curious expression on his face: Now that he had read Naveen's fortune, it seemed to say, he didn't care much about the prince anymore. Which was fine with Naveen. He occupied himself gazing around the room, outlandish and exotic even to this Maldonian prince.

"On you, little man, I don't wanna waste much time…" Dr. Facilier was saying, but Naveen was much more ecstatic about his own tarot reading than Dr. Facilier and Laurence were!

"…if you was married, you'd be pushed around by your wife," the voodoo doctor was telling Laurence.

Naveen chuckled. Returning to his own card, he gazed at the illustrated man's happy face, wondering if his own expression was much different. Rich! He would be rich again!

Although who knew how, Naveen reflected suddenly. The fortune had neglected to mention _that_. But who cared? Haha! He was going to be rich again! And free!

Dr. Facilier had finished Laurence's reading, and the "little man" looked, to Naveen's surprise, pleased with his fortune, as well. Naveen resolved to ask him later what it was; it wouldn't be that hard to extricate from him.

"Shake my hand," smiled Dr. Facilier. "Come on, boys, won't you shake a poor sinner's hand?"

They both shook eagerly. Naveen was about to thank the voodoo doctor for a splendid time, but the latter spoke first.

"Yes…" Dr. Facilier let go very quickly. "ARE YOU READY?"

_ARE YOU READY?_

Before Naveen could even utter a confused syllable, he looked around to see, all very quickly, that everything surrounding the purply-lit table had disappeared, and the carved masks sang in front of him! Naveen wondered if the lamp had been laced with opium, a drug he had experienced once or twice before, although of course somewhat more directly.

He really, _really_ hoped this was an opium dream.

He had all of these thoughts in an instant, and the hope intensified as two snakes, appearing from nowhere, bound him to the chair!

"ARE YOU…READY?"

It had to be a dream. Naveen willed it to be. It had to, had to, had to…That would explain why his body seemed paralyzed, how he couldn't open his mouth to cry for help, let alone to scream "Ready for WHAT?!"

(Ready for what? Ready for WHAT?)

Instead, the question raced around his brain, loud enough that had Dr. Facilier read minds as well as tarot, the man would've covered his ears.

"Transformation Central—!"

_Transformation Central!_

(Transformation—?!)

"Reformation Central—!"

_Reformation Central!_

"Transformification! Central!"

The voodoo doctor approached Naveen with something small and round, and with a look on his face that terrified Naveen, that galvanized his muscles; he struggled against his living bonds: But it was no use. The small something, a hollow mask, had sharp, gaping teeth, and Dr. Facilier was not a gentle man.

The sharpened points stabbed into Naveen's finger. Naveen had always been terrified of doctor's needles, if nothing else, and this was too, too horrific.

"Can you feel it?"

Naveen could. He bellowed in pain and panic, writhing as Facilier squeezed his finger to fill the receptacle.

Pain had come with the cut and squeeze; now Naveen's panic mounted as a green glitteriness spread from the cut, over his hand and up his body...

It surrounded him like water. He could not breathe. Terrified as he was, short of breath and enchanted of body, Naveen's body jerked and rocked with spasms.

"You're changing, you're changing…you're changing, all right. I hope you're satisfied," said Dr. Facilier. His face swam darkly in the lurid green haze like a grotesque death mask. Naveen could see his skull.

It was getting hard to see. He still fought to breathe.

"But if you ain't, don't blame me…" murmured Facilier, growing larger and larger, blurrier and blurrier. "You can blame my friends on the other side…"

The skull vanished, Naveen was alone.

_You got what you wanted—but you lost what you had!_

Which was the last thing Naveen heard before the green haze suffocated him…

_**Next: FREEDOM TAKES GREEN, in which money is, in fact, the least of Naveen's worries.**_


	7. Freedom Takes Green

**I REALLY didn't want to put the "Next" at the end last time, just leave it as is. Creepy and all.**

**Aren't I silly?**

**-M.R.**

**VII. FREEDOM TAKES GREEN**

Naveen HAD BEGUN TO FEEL THAT he was making a habit of waking up disoriented in strange places. He was extremely woozy, and would really have rather liked to throw up.

Nonetheless, he tried to rise to his feet, promptly tripped over them, and fell onto his side again. "Ugghhh…"

Even without speaking, his tongue felt misshapen, sticky. In fact, Naveen felt as he had upon waking on the ship bound for New Orleans, in the throes of a massive hangover. But this time, he hadn't even been drinking.

Or had he? Naveen ran his fuzzy tongue over the roof of his mouth as he assessed the situation. His head ached; in fact all of him ached—he felt as though his bones had all been dislocated and then set back in place; his tongue, eyes, and limbs simply felt wrong somehow; and to top it all off, Naveen had just come to the disturbing realization that he was naked.

"_Faldi faldonza_…" he mumbled. He couldn't remember a thing. How much had he drunk, and with whom? How had he ended up lying on his side, in pitch darkness, stark naked? (And why, for that matter, had it taken so long for him to notice that?) Had he been robbed?

"Laurence…?"

No answer.

Opium. A click in his brain. Something about opium.

Naveen mentally uttered a word which the author hesitates to record, even in the original Maldonian.

If he _had_ also been drinking heavily—which years of experience told him was probably the case—then it was no wonder he had a big hole, a critical lapse, in his memory. He didn't even know where he was, but that, at least, he could maybe figure out: Judging from the sliminess of the ground beneath him, the darkness, and the faint strains of music he could hear, Naveen must be lying where someone had tossed him, wine-sodden, behind a bar or tavern. Naked, of course. How humiliating. Hopefully none of this had happened before this deep darkness fell (did New Orleans always have such dark nights? Hadn't he seen wrought-iron lampposts everywhere?). if anyone had seen and recognized him, how on earth would he explain to Mr. La Bouff?

"_Faldi faldonza_!" Naveen swore again. Between the faint music and the thought of Mr. la Bouff, Naveen realized he was missing the masquerade ball. He would have some degree of explaining to do to his kind host, whether Naveen had been seen carousing or not. "Stupid, stupid, stupid—"

Suddenly a crack of light appeared at Naveen's eye level (he was still lying on the floor). Naveen scrambled up onto his haunches (a feat which did little for his aching body), thinking hard. What with the headache Naveen could feel beginning, his brain was as strained as if it were his eyes, being used to peer through the—no longer complete, at least—blackness. Obviously, this light had appeared under a door, and Naveen must bang on the door and demand help, hoping his nakedness didn't tell against him. Where, oh, where was that fool Laurence when Naveen really needed him?!

Several things happened at once. Naveen sprang forward from his crouching position. Barely had he time to wonder why he had moved in such a fashion before the top of his head—and his face—slammed into…what?

"Arghhhhhhhh…"

Flat on his back, seeing stars, Naveen not only realized there was a low ceiling above him, but could feel against his feet a cool smoothness. Glass? Yes; that would explain why he hadn't seen the wall in front of him; there was a window there. Huh. So he wasn't outside, after all. Then where…?

Naveen slammed his fist against the floor in frustration, hard, like a toddler having a tantrum.

And the door opened.

Naveen yelped in surprise. Laurence's face was looming towards him. Not only was it much, much bigger than usual, but the expression on the butler's face was, though unmenacing, not one Naveen liked the look of at all. If it weren't for the pounding aches everywhere, Naveen would have been quite sure he was dreaming.

"Laurence! Help!" said Naveen, scrambling to his feet (and hitting his head on the ceiling again). He let out another yelp as he looked around him, clutching his poor head, and blinking in the light.

"He'll b-be q-q-quite secure in h-here, Doc-Doctor F-Facilier," stuttered Laurence.

"He had better be. For your sake, of course."

Doctor Facilier!

Naveen had heard that smooth-talking voice before, as well as the name of the man to whom it belonged, and instinctively recoiled from it; he never wanted to hear it again. "Laurence!" he cried again, because what he had seen, if appearances were to be believed, was that he, Naveen, was much smaller than he was used to, was shrunk. And was in a jar. Which was in some sort of cupboard.

"Now let's get going," ordered Doctor Facilier. "We're already late. And that's tacky. Put that amulet on."

Laurence, clearly taking his prince's vain mouthings for lack of oxygen, picked up the jar, loosed the lid almost halfway, and set it back in the cupboard. However, he looked at Naveen himself as though he didn't really see him. He let the cupboard door fall closed with a bang; fortunately for Naveen, it ricocheted open just an inch or so, leaving the cupboard dimly lit.

The lights dimmed, but did not go out. Naveen heard footfalls, and then silence, which was a relief, as hardly any of the conversation had made sense to him.

Naveen could feel panic rising in his chest like nausea (a comparison he could make quite accurately, given the sickness he felt even at that moment), and questions circled in his head like vultures waiting to strike. What had Doctor Facilier done to him? Why? And how the hell was Naveen going to extract Laurence from the witch doctor's clutches if he, Naveen, was small enough to be held captive in a jam jar?! He should have, oh, he should have listened to Mr. La Bouff—

Naveen stopped before he could go any further, knuckling his fists into his closed eyes in an attempt to concentrate, and swallowing hard. He would worry about all of this momentarily. The first order of business was to get out of the jar.

Naveen considered his options, settling back down on his haunches: which was surprisingly comfortable. The most effective way for him to escape his prison would be to push the jar over the edge of the cupboard—but even were he to survive the drop to the floor…Naveen winced. While the jar would be effectively shattered, he didn't fancy picking glass shards out of his skin.

His best bet was to somehow remove the lid, and then, also _somehow_, hop out. Naveen placed both hands on the underside of the jar lid.

And realized that more had gone wrong than he'd previously thought.

The light was dim, and Naveen was still dizzy, but his hands were, he thought, funny-looking. He wiggled then experimentally, and found that he could not feel his thumbs. His hands were also, he discovered, slightly stuck to the lid of the jar. Close to panicking, Naveen wiggled his fingers again, grunting a little with the exertion of trying to prove himself crazy—but when he opened his mouth, his tongue flew out and stuck to the ceiling, too.

"Hunh?" he said aloud, as best as he could with his tongue stuck. "Muh has ah gaweeh?"

A double take proved him right: Naveen's hands were, as he had just asked himself, green. They were also three-fingered, and webbed in between the fingers. And—

_Green._

What had Doctor Facilier said? Naveen was beginning to remember, but he was horrified. _You wanna be free, hop from place to place…_Naveen had thought, in passing, that "hop" was a strange word to use…_but freedom takes GREEN._

"Nuh…" A dawning suspicion had begun to grow in Naveen's mind.

_It's the green, it's the green, it's the green you need—and when I looked into your future, it's the green that I seen._

"NUH!" Naveen thrashed around in the jar. He had a dawning suspicion that his first dawning suspicion was nothing but fact. What else had Facilier said?

_Transformation Central…_

The jar toppled over, and the lid popped off, sending Naveen skittering across the wooden boards and out of the cupboard, into a richly-furnished room. Naveen should have been relieved to be free, but terrified as he was, he shivered violently, and scrambled towards the warmth of the fireplace.

_Can you feel it?_

A slight movement behind Naveen startled him. He whirled, cowering, thinking his yells and clumsiness had alerted someone. Hopefully not Facilier…

_You're changing, you're changing, you're changing, all right—_

And now Naveen screamed, truly and loudly. What he saw, stretching out before him, was his shadow.

The shadow of a frog.

Naveen ran—no, hopped!—for his life; as though he could outrun the shadow or what it meant. A window opened into the night and Naveen sped through it almost reflexively. He retched as he ran, although his stomach was empty.

_**Next: DE FRAGEE PRUTO, in which Naveen stops panicking, somewhat.**_


	8. De Fragee Pruto

**VIII. DE FRAGEE PRUTO**

NAVEEN WAS MISERABLE.

How could he not be?

Just this morning Naveen had been Prince Naveen of Maldonia, honored and adored, WELCOME PRINCE NAVEEN, and all that jazz. Exactly—all that jazz! He had been dancing, his spirits light as his feet, strumming a ukulele and making girls swoon.

And now…

Now, he was a frog. _Faldi faldonza, _a FROG.

A _frog._

Girls did not like frogs.

They screamed when they saw them. Naveen himself had often had to "rescue" his dates from frogs, or mice or cockroaches for that matter.

He had gone from the top to the bottom of the attractiveness or whatever-it-was pyramid, in less than six hours.

Now, he couldn't dance. He could barely stand up on his skinny hind legs. And he kept tripping over his big, clumsy webbed feet. Now, he was smaller than his ukulele. He couldn't play a single instrument—his mouth, as well as his fingers, were too different.

Naveen sat in the hallway and considered his options.

Perhaps he could go to the masquerade. Could he somehow convince Mr. La Bouff of what had happened? Naveen doubted it. Mr. La Bouff didn't even believe in voodoo. And even if Naveen could manage to convince him…

It was getting close enough to Mr. La Bouff that was the problem. Naveen was, after all, a FROG (could he really forget it?). He would be stopped. Men, _trying_ to be as charming as Naveen _was_, would dispose of him to please their dance partners…if Naveen wasn't skewered by pointy heels first.

Perhaps if he took a more circuitous route…

Naveen figured the best way to get into the masquerade mightn't be the direct way, after all. There were all those…feet. (_Faldi faldonza_, he was beginning already to sound like a frog! As if humans were the enemy. Although admittedly just now they were.)

It didn't take Naveen long to realize that traversing the floor underneath the side tables was far more dangerous for a frog like him. At least on the dance floor people might've given him a wide berth. They could see him. Whereas now, if anyone stepped on him, squished him, they might think it was just some old drumstick or beignet moldering under the table. Naveen cast anxious glances at the fanciful, costume-y heels and spats on either side of him, poking under the white tablecloth like dragons in caves, lying in wait for the odd unsuspecting prince. A prince like Naveen. The analogy was so close to home it was funny—or would have been, Naveen reflected as he hopped from spot to spot, if he weren't a stupid FROG.

At least trying not to get killed was a distraction. Naveen emerged from beneath the last tablecloth, was nearly suffocated by voluminous pink skirts—at least their owner seemed to despise them too; she was saying something about "sweating like a sinner in church," which simile also made Naveen chuckle just a bit—escaped said skirts (who would've thought the day would come that Naveen would be hiding under a girl's skirt and not taking advantage of the situation? The mind boggled), and sped up the grand staircase unseen.

Here was a problem. Naveen had decided he had no chance of getting Mr. La Bouff's attention (and living to make use of it) at the actual ball, so he'd just have to find the man's room and wait for him there. But the only door opening off the stairs was closed. Naveen crouched on the banister, thinking hard.

(Now if YOU had been a frog, you might have figured out what to do much sooner. But Naveen, to use a somewhat unsuitable expression, had "read all the wrong books." He wasn't even much of a reader. To be sure, he was very good at science, and he was fluent in numerous languages, and he had a few—very few—favorite books that he had read only at his tutor's insistence, but that was about it. He was intelligent, but had as a result of his upbringing less Common Sense than others, or it worked differently, or both.)

This was stupid. It was all stupid. Stupid, stupid, STUPID. WHY had he even come here? What had he thought he would accomplish? He didn't even know how to do ANYTHING except drinking and partying and wenching. And science. And French. And English. And—well, was any of it useful to him now? NO. IT WAS NOT. He was USELESS.

In short, charming and conceited Prince Naveen was about as close as such a man could possibly be to an attack of low self-esteem.

He had been useless as a prince, and now he was even more useless as an UGLY, weak, slimy (well, mucous), green, sticky, warty—

Sticky?

Naveen sat and thought about what he knew about frogs.

They caught insects with their tongues. When they blinked, their eyes pushed down on their throats so they could swallow. They secreted mucus and had to be constantly moist, and sometimes licked themselves like cats if no water was near. _They had sticky pads on their feet for use in climbing!_

Naveen, remembering the feel of his hands against the glass jar's lid, lifted his right hand from the marble banister. It obeyed, but not without some resistance. Wonderingly, he slapped his hand against the wall. It stuck.

"Haha!" Naveen crawled triumphantly (if cautiously, considering the sheer drop that awaited his failure) onto the wall. He should have been defying gravity completely, but he didn't fall. Gaining courage and momentum, he began his tour of the windows, feeling like a spider or…well, a frog.

Naveen sighed.

As a light waltz filled the air above (around? Above? He was, after all, sideways) Naveen, he peeked into every window he came across; he saw bath rooms, hallways, ballrooms, closets (why did they have closets with windows?) music rooms, tea rooms, parlors, and several bedrooms, but none of the bedrooms looked the slightest bit masculine OR inhabited.

It was a huge house—not as huge as the imperial castle, or even one of the smaller, country castles, that Naveen had lived in in Maldonia, but then, he hadn't had to CLIMB those—and Naveen slumped gratefully on a balcony halfway around the house from where he had begun, panting.

The French doors were thrown wide open to catch a breeze. But dark and gossamer-curtained as this room was, he could tell it was unabashedly pink. Naveen mustered up enough air for a groan. He would have to keep looking.

In a minute. An hour. In a few years or so. He was frog-tired, in a heap on the balcony railing. Anyways, there was no rush, it wasn't like the masquerade was going to end soon.

Or was it? Naveen pricked up his ears, wondering in passing where they were on his frog-body, and listened. The music appeared to have stopped. Yes! Now he could speak to Mr. La Bouff!

But before Naveen could raise his weary body to keep looking, the room before him was suddenly ablaze with light. Definitely pink. It hurt the eyes, even through all those fluttery curtains. And voices could be heard. He froze.

"Honestly, Tia, honey, I'm so glad you got that old dress dirty. It's a pretty little thing, for sure, but…You've worn it every year since we were fifteen and I have the PERFECT gown for you. See? It SPARKLES, ain't it something? No, no, don't thank me. This was gonna be your birthday present."

"Lotte," answered another voice drily, "when on earth would I wear this dress if not for a masquerade ball?"

"Oh, never mind that—go put it on, I wanna see. Oh, Tia! Did you see the way he danced with me? A marriage proposal can't be far behind! Thank you, evening star!"

Naveen rolled his eyes, peering through the gossamer curtains at the speaker. This "Lotte" had to be Charlotte La Bouff. She was the girl in pink skirts from earlier. And she was One of Those? _Faldi faldonza._

"You know, I was just beginning to think that wishing on stars was for babies, and crazy people…"

Funny. So was Naveen.

A figure, clearly the "Tia" Lotte was speaking to, emerged from behind a screen, her skin dark against a shimmering, slim blue gown. Since he couldn't see all that well through the curtains anyways, Naveen got bored.

"…oh…Tia…look at you! Aren't you just as pretty as a magnolia in May! Seems like only yesterday we were both little girls, dreaming our fairy-tale dreams…and tonight they're finally coming true. Well—back into the fray! Wish me luck!"

The door slammed shut, and Naveen sighed. Having regained some of his energy, he began to scoot along the balcony again, not noticing that the lights were still on.

"Almost there—"

Naveen nearly screamed and fell off the balcony. But he realized almost immediately that the girl, Tia, who remained in the room, was speaking to herself, not complimenting Naveen's progress—an unusual circumstance for him.

"People would've come here from everywhere…"

She looked vaguely familiar. Naveen ran his gaze quickly (not _too_ quickly) up and down her attractive person, trying to place her. As his eyes settled on the tiara nestled into her dark hair, he concluded she must be a visiting royal, as well. That would explain why he recognized her. Wait—had he slept with her? Naveen was willing to wager his transformation back into a human that he had _not_…

"I was almost there…"

Although that _would_ explain why he wouldn't have remembered her name if not for Miss La Bouff. As it was, he still couldn't figure out where she was from…

Princess Tia sighed. Rubbing her ungloved upper arms with her hands for warmth, she glided towards him, though she did not see him, and rested her elbows on the balcony. She rubbed her fingers under her eyes, as though she was about to cry.

Since she was a princess (unlike her bubbly hostess), Naveen condescended to wonder why she was so unhappy. He seized on Charlotte La Bouff's excitement. Hadn't it been about a dancing partner? Maybe Princess Tia was jealous? But that was ridiculous. Surely common men were as attracted to princesses as all women were to Naveen. Why did this man prefer Miss La Bouff over a beautiful girl who was OBVIOUSLY royalty?

Naveen couldn't blame Princess Tia for being upset. As a woman, she couldn't simply waltz over and seduce the man, not like Naveen could seduce the woman he wanted.

"Could." In the past tense.

Suddenly Princess Tia started up from her pensive post. Glancing quickly back into the room (no one was around, unless you counted Naveen, which Naveen most certainly did), she rolled her eyes at herself, muttered, "I cannot believe I'm doing this," and clutching a piece of paper to her bodice (a circumstance Naveen greatly admired from his clandestine position), she cast her eyes up, imploringly this time, at the brightest star in the sky. "Please…please…please…" she begged the muggy night air.

Babies and crazy people. Naveen's esteem for her dropped a notch.

Oh, well. He preferred his ladies happy. Or else he could _make_ them happy. But something about this young woman struck him—he was sure that she was not the type to be cheered by a caress, anyways. She seemed hard-to-get—not in a coquettish fashion, but in a dead-serious way. The kind of girl which Naveen hated to encounter. They were never any _fun_. She was probably going to be an old-maidy duenna someday.

Which was why he had been surprised that she, a princess, and obviously a sensible one, had resorted to wishing on a far-away ball of light for something she should have been able to get with a snap of her fingers.

And which was why he was further surprised when the princess noticed him, just then. She started a little, but then propped her head on her hand, so that her head was just a little above his, seeming to compose herself almost immediately.

And he was shocked the most of all when she greeted him familiarly, in a sultry voice, with the words, "Very funny. So what now? I reckon you want a kiss?"

_**Next: I KNOW THIS STORY, in which Naveen does NOT know this story.**_


	9. I Know This Story

**IX. I KNOW THIS STORY**

WELL!

Two could play at this, this game, of all seduction and no shock! Especially when it was a game Naveen was master of. He grinned at her, hoping the damned voodoo doctor hadn't transformed his winning smile, too. "Kissing would be nice, yes?"

But Princess Tia managed to get the better of his expectations once again when she screamed, stumbled backwards—all the way back into the room—and crashed into a bookcase. Naveen was, once again, surprised.

And horrified, too. The princess was still prone on the floor. He leaped towards her, shouting apologies…and stopped dead on the threshold of the room.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I did not mean to scare y—wait, no, no, no, no!"

Because after what seemed like a lifetime to Naveen, she began to move again, raising herself up to her knees, glaring at him—and lobbing everything within reach at him.

"Wait!" he begged her, dodging a stuffed animal.

"Hold on—listen—aaargh!" and a heavy-looking hairbrush. A stuffed bear skidded to a stop right in front of him and he used it as a barricade, a shield. "You have a very strong arm, princess—!"

But compliments weren't working. A doll whizzed past.

"OKAY. PLEASE! PUT. THE MONKEY. DOWN."

The monkey caught him full in the face.

Dazed, he staggered to his feet. The princess had risen, too, and was wielding a very heavy-looking book. "Stay back," she demanded, "or I'll—I'll—"

The time had come for desperate action. Naveen leaped valiantly forward onto the vanity, still unused to hopping, and therefore relatively heedless of further danger. "Please, please—please," he stammered, but his touching entreaty was abruptly brought to a close as he tumbled forward over himself and was brought up short below the princess's indignant face.

"Wow," he mumbled. The tumble may have been undignified, but the whole trip up the table had been fun!

Anyways. Now that he had her full and undivided attention, Naveen stood up on his hind legs. "Allow me to introduce myself," he grinned again. "I…am Prince Naveen—"

The book came crashing down on him.

Naveen felt like a doublet put through a clothes press.

"—of Maldonia," he finished, weakly.

Princess Tia emitted noises of disbelief and amazement as Naveen peeled himself off the scalloped dressing-table and stopped his head spinning.

"Hold on. If you're the prince," said Princess Tia suddenly, causing Naveen to almost fall over again, "then—then—WHO was that, waltzing with Lotte on the dance floor?!"

Did that mean Princess Tia had been jealous of Miss La Bouff for dancing with someone she had mistaken for _Naveen_? The thought was enough to put a grin on his aching face as he looked up at her.

"All I know," he confessed, "is that, one minute: I am a prince, charming and handsome, cutting a rug—" he did a little jig for illustrative purposes, and promptly tripped over his big fat webbed feet. "And the next thing I know: I am tripping over _these_!"

Sticking his foot up at her turned out to be a bad idea, since her face was still rather close. Princess Tia made a disgusted noise and raised the heavy book again.

"Wait—wait—wait—" Naveen cowered as _The Frog Prince_—and soon after, a realization—came hurtling towards him. "WAIT. I know this story. _De Fragee Pruto_!"

"The Frog Prince?" Bewildered, Princess Tia handed him the book.

"Yes, yes," he grunted, hoisting it onto the table and propping it open. "My mother—urgh—had the servants read it to me every night…" He flipped to the end of the book.

On the left-hand page, a winsome maid did as the text opposite her said:_ KISSED THE FROG! Then lo and behold, the frog was transformed into…_

Naveen turned the page, to an astonished couple. _A handsome Prince! They were married and lived happily ever after_.

"Yes…yes…yes—and this is exactly the answer!" Flipping back and forth between the two pages so rapidly that he could almost see _himself_ turning from frog to prince before his eyes, Naveen turned triumphantly towards Princess Tia. So _something_ interesting was to come of this transformation, after all. "You," he smirked, "must kiss me."

"Ex_cuse_ me?!"

"You will enjoy, I guarantee" he assured her, straightening. "All women enjoy the kiss of Prince Naveen. Come," he instructed. He was also prepared to bet she had never been kissed before. "We pucker." To his embarrassment, when he did so, his belly swelled and what seemed about to be a loud and hearty _ribbit_ rose in his throat. Naveen opened his eyes, pushed down on his belly, and successfully suppressed the ribbit. It was like stifling a belch, although Naveen hardly ever stifled _those_. "That's new," he informed Princess Tia, but she was still unconvinced.

"Look, I'm sorry," she prevaricated. "I'd really like to help you. I just—" her face contorted—"do _not_ kiss _frogs_."

Naveen was flabbergasted. "But—wait a second! On the balcony—_you_ asked _me_—!"

"I didn't expect you to _answer_!"

"Oh, but you _must_ kiss me," he pleaded, and brought out the big artillery. He really didn't think it would work on a princess, but what else could he offer her? "Look. Besides being unbelievably handsome—okay—I also happen to come from a fabulously wealthy family. Surely I could offer you some kind of reward, uh, or a wish I could grant, perhaps?"

There was a very short but silent pause. Naveen was astonished but relieved to see Princess Tia's face light up. She had a pretty smile.

"Yes?" he prompted her.

She looked down at him, her smile fading into an anxious expression. "Just one kiss?" the princess clarified, wringing her hands.

"Just one," Naveen agreed. "Unless you beg for more." When he opened his mouth to grin charmingly, persuasively, his tongue shot out and rehydrated his head instinctively. It felt good, but Naveen really wished it wouldn't have happened while he was trying to persuade a pretty princess to kiss him.

The pretty princess shuddered. However, she cast her eyes heavenward briefly, and leaned forward, puckering her lips. Naveen closed his eyes and waited.

There was a sudden _whoosh_ of air; Naveen opened one eye. Princess Tia had retreated, her back to him, and was making self-motivational whimpering noises. He gave her time to compose her fluttering heart, taking a furtive puff of perfume, in lieu of a peppermint, from one of Miss La Bouff's bottles. It tasted revolting.

Almost immediately, though, the princess's face was coming towards his and she planted a hard kiss on his lips.

Naveen decided that for her first kiss, it really wasn't all that bad. Once he was restored to his glorious human body, i.e. momentarily, he would perhaps teach her how to kiss with her lips parted. Princess Tia had very soft lips.

And then her lips were gone and Naveen opened his eyes. Funny. He didn't feel at all different. Although maybe that was just the way the magic worked. But when Naveen looked down at himself, he realized he was still sitting on Miss La Bouff's table, and he was still a frog. He sighed.

Princess Tia, however, had disappeared. So something had to have happened, and anyways there was more glittery stuff still twinkling down to the ground. Naveen peered over the edge of the dressing-table and said, "_Faldi faldonza_!"

Princess Tia's clothing lay in a heap where she had been standing. Naveen barely had time to lament that her obviously hastily-conducted state of undress on his human behalf would go to waste, before he realized that something infinitely worse had occurred.

Something was moving in the folds of the dress. To Naveen's horror, a small green frog emerged from the bodice, looked up at Naveen, blinked, and said in the unmistakable tones of Princess Tia, "You don't look that much different. But how'd you get way up there? And how'd _I _get way down here, in all this—?"

That was when she caught sight of the mirror that had fallen off of the bookcase.

Princess Tia stared at her reflection for a moment in mute horror.

Then she screamed.

_**Next: TIANA'S TIARA, in which Naveen ingeniously figures out why the kiss backfired.**_


	10. Tiana's Tiara

**X. TIANA'S TIARA**

WITH AN EASE THAT NAVEEN would have envied under any other circumstances, Princess Tia the Frog leapt nimbly up and stood beside Naveen, making inarticulate noises of distress and disgust at her transformation.

"Easy, Princess!" Naveen sputtered, forgetting for the moment how _he_ had reacted when he was turned into a frog. "Princess—do not panic! Uh—"

Princess was panicking. "What did you _do_ to me?! I—I'm GREEN! And I'm, and I'm SLIMY! And—!"

"Oh! No," laughed Naveen as he took her arm, relieved that here at last was something he could explain. "That is not slime."

"Wha—"

"You are secreting mucus."

"I'll MUCUS you!"

Like another infamous Disney playboy, Naveen wisely chose to hold back the vulgar retort that sprang to mind. He didn't have time to say it, anyways, because the princess-frog had just tackled him, knocking them both off of the table. They ricocheted off the floor, a bookcase, a rocking horse, and out into the night sky.

Their screams were jarred to a halt by the _THUNK_ of a drum as they landed, and the man at the drum set attacked the instrument almost immediately, setting off an unintentional rhythm that was picked up eagerly by the rest of the jazz band.

Naveen noted, as he and the princess flailed for their lives on a cymbal, that the upbeat music had reenergized the not-quite-so-gone-as-Naveen-had-thought partygoers, and their dancing meant MORE FEET. He groaned, only to yell in surprise as the two frogs were propelled into the air once more—and into Charlotte La Bouff's collar.

Miss La Bouff behaved as Naveen expected: With an unearthly screech, she promptly threw herself backwards on the ground, writhing, which meant that both frogs were rather squished as they wriggled their way out of the stiff standup collar and began working their way up (down?) her skirt. As they perched on the hem of her voluminous hoopskirt, Miss La Bouff caught sight of what had "attacked" her and let out an ear-piercing scream, possibly worse than before.

"ESTELLA!"

"Run!" Naveen knew what that meant, even if the princess did not, and he grabbed her hand and scampered out of the big dog's range even before Mr. La Bouff had drawn breath to add "Get them frogs!"

"I _can't_ run!" screamed Princess Tia. "I'm a FROG!"

As if he had forgotten. "Then HOP!"

Together they scrabbled uselessly across an almost-empty table, whose tablecloth therefore gave way under their feet, with Estella the dog actually at their heels. (Did frogs even _have_ heels?) Naveen could feel the dog's hot breath at his back, and wished, insanely, that she recognized him. "Down, girl!" he shouted ineffectually, "Down—MONSTER DOG!"

But the dog wasn't the only one with a frog phobia, it seemed. Other guests, unfortunately armed with wooden swords as well as Civil War sabers, swung at the two frogs as they passed. A piece of someone's costume fell over them, but they continued to run, blindly.

"Oh NO!" screamed Princess Tia.

"Look out! Out of the way! Excuse me!" bellowed Naveen at random intervals. To his relief, either his words were heeded or the two frogs were just disgustingly lucky.

For frogs, anyways.

"Where are we going?!" screamed Princess Tia. Naveen had begun to philosophically accept her exclamations as rhetorical, and ignored her.

"I can't see a thing!" she added.

"WELL, NEITHER CAN I!" Naveen yelled back, forgetting himself.

Soon they ran into _something_, but it only pulled the costume piece off of their heads and tumbled them into a tangle of balloons. Naveen managed to cut them loose just before the dog lunged.

"Wait—Stella!" cried Princess Tia.

"ARE YOU MAD?" Naveen shouted, tying himself to the balloon strings as the princess fumbled with hers. "Hurry up!"

But the princess wasn't listening, and almost fell as they floated away. Naveen grumbled, but grabbed her hand. "Stella, it's me, Tiana!"

"Tiana?!" exclaimed Estella.

The frogs stared silently at the chaos they had created, shrinking as they rose into the night sky.

"Stella just spoke to me," murmured Princess Tiana, alias Tia. "The dog just _spoke to me_—"

Naveen sighed. "You know," he gritted out as she let go of his arm and clung to the balloon strings for herself (_finally!_), "if you're going to let every _little_ thing bother you, it's going to be a very long night!"

"'Little'?" Princess Tiana didn't miss the emphasis, but drew herself up sharply as though she assumed he meant her stature rather than her perspective. Thunder cracked as she spoke, and Naveen, looking at Princess Tiana's angry brown eyes, shivered at the ominous timing.

"Yes! Little! We have been turned into frogs—"

"_You_ turned _me_—"

"—we almost got killed—"

"—into a frog and if you hadn't decided to be so smarmy—"

"—and you choose to—"

"—we wouldn't be here right now, floating off to—"

"—go crazy because a dog talks to you? WE ARE ANIMALS. SHE IS AN ANIMAL. IT'S NATURAL."

"—GOD KNOWS WHERE—Fine. Whatever. But it's still your fault that _I'm _here."

Naveen nearly struck himself in the forehead, but decided he really didn't want to let go of a balloon at such a great height. Sticky pads wouldn't help this time. "It is not _my_ fault," he said, trying to stay calm, "it is the fault of whatever made that kiss not work. I wonder why it turned us both into frogs instead of not doing anything."

It began to rain.

There was a long pause. Princess Tiana, taken aback by his low tones, seemed to be making an effort to remain calm, too. "How in the world did you end up as a little old frog, anyways?" she asked after a while, curiously and almost kindly.

"'Little'?" he echoed teasingly, adopting a light tone and smiling when she giggled reluctantly. It felt wonderful to be flirting effectively again. "You are smaller than me! But I will tell you. When I came here today, I met a tall skinny man in purple. He offered to tell my fortune, and I—"

"Whoa, whoa, WHOA," Princess Tiana interrupted. "All in purple? Tall? Skinny? Was he dressed like he thought he was Baron Samedi or something?"

"Saturday Baron what?"

"Never mind. Do you know his name?"

"Dr…..Facilier. As in, a voodoo doctor," he explained.

Princess Tiana's eyes were as big as…well, pretty big for a frog. "Voodoo?" she cried. "You mean to tell me this all happened because you were messing with the Shadow Man?"

"He was very charismatic!" Naveen defended himself.

Princess Tiana groaned aloud. "It serves me right for wishing on stars! The _only_ way," she informed Naveen, "to get what you want in this world is through hard work!"

Naveen only laughed, but somewhat uneasily. "Hard work? Uh, _why_ would a princess need to work hard?"

Princess Tiana stared up at him. "Huh? Oh. I'm not a princess, I'm a waitress!"

Naveen very nearly _did_ let go of the balloons this time. At first it was inadvertent; then on further reflection he seriously considered it as an option. "A _waitress_?!" His voice ripped through several octaves.

"Don't you screech at me!"

"I am NOT sc—" Naveen could hear his voice rising in pitch again. He took a deep breath and contented himself with repeating, in a purposely low tone, "A WAITRESS?! Well, no _wonder_ the kiss did not work!" Ha! he defied the waitress to label THAT a screech. Naveen leveled a webbed finger at Waitress Tiana. "You lied to me!"

Waitress Tiana pointed straight back at him. "No, I did NOT—I never said I was a princess!"

"You never said that you were a waitress—a WAITRESS!" Naveen did slap himself in the face this time. He didn't fall. Instead, he concentrated on how every time he repeated "waitress," the horrible word grew in horribility. That sounded strange. Horribleness? Maybe she was just joking? A really bad joke? And if he remained certain of the truth she would confess? "You—you were wearing a crown—"

"It was a _costume_ _party_!" Waitress Tiana spat back at him.

"A _wait_—OOH!" He cut off in the middle of the fifteen hundredth repetition of waitress (counting the loop of _Waitress, waitress, WAITRESS_ in his mind that was enlivened with a chorus of _Faldi faldonza, faldi faldonza, faldi faldonza_) to give a gasp of horror that would make a llama proud. "YOU were that waitress that rejected me!"

"Rejected you…?"

"Outside Duke's Café," prompted Naveen helpfully.

"You—Then that was _you_, that smarmy, brazen, imbecilic, dereliction of taste and common sense that bowed to me?! Ugh!" the waitress wailed. "Did you _know_ just how much I hate those darn ukuleles?"

"Oh, of course," said Naveen sarcastically—but only in answer to the last part. Before that he had no idea of most of the words Tiana had been using. It was very sad that a waitress should have that advantage. What on earth was the world coming to these days? He said as much. "You know, I do not understand half the words you were using. It is funny in a sad way that you know more words than a prince, no? I do not understand…People these days…"

She bristled. "Ohh, you spoiled little rich boy!"

"Oh, yes?" snarled Naveen, who was getting seriously annoyed. "Well, the egg is on your face, all right?" He smirked at Tiana's puzzled face, pleased to know a saying she didn't (well, she _was_ only a waitress. And he? He was a prince). "Because _I_ do not have any riches!"

"What?!"

"I am COMPLETELY BROKE!" he guffawed. The waitress looked at him like he was insane, which was probably true, considering how triumphantly he was informing her of his penniless state. "AHAHAHA—"

Unfortunately, the balloons had decided to intervene. They swooped straight towards skeletal branches, popped, and promptly deposited Naveen and Tiana the waitress in dirty gray water. Naveen surfaced first, sputtering, and was immediately bowled over by Tiana, looking worse for wear under gobs of wet Spanish moss. "You said you were fabulously wealthy!" she sputtered, flinging the moss at Naveen.

"No," he repeated, dodging the moss and growing serious. "My parents are fabulously wealthy, but…" Why was it so hard to say it aloud for the first time? To a _waitress_? "But they cut me off for being a—LEECH!"

"You're BROKE," Tiana repeated, rolling her eyes and prying the disgusting thing off of Naveen, "and you had the gall to call _me_ a liar?"

Naveen had no answer to that. Fortunately—or unfortunately—he was spared replying when a HUMONGOUS catfish leapt from nowhere, swallowing the leech Tiana had just tossed aside. Leaping froggishly (and effectively) out of the way, they reached the riverbank. Meanwhile, Naveen had finally come up with a good answer. "It was _not_ a lie. I fully inten—AARGH!" they dove out of the way of a hungry heron's beak.

"Run!" screamed Tiana, as the beak descended again—as though he would do anything else.

"I fully intend to be rich again!" he panted, "once I marry Miss Charlotte La Bouff—if she will have me." And she would, naturally. He was, after all, Prince Naveen of Maldonia.

"You're a prince?" Tiana yelled back.

"Obviously!"

"She'll have you," Tiana reassured him, finally beginning to pant as well. _Achidanza_, was he out of shape or was she too much in? Naveen preferred the latter conclusion. Waitress freak.

In a very few seconds they suddenly plunged down a steep incline, flew over the edge of the bank, out of reach of the heron, and landed on a log in the water. Naveen, who had landed headfirst, wondered inconsequentially what it was about frogs that made them so bouncy—although, he winced, not bouncy enough to keep his head from feeling like it was split down the middle.

"All right," said Tiana, going right-side up again as Naveen fell sideways and sat up, rubbing his head. "Once you two are married, you _are_ going to keep your promise and get me my restaurant, right?"

Naveen cocked an eyebrow—or where his eyebrow would be if frogs had them. The motion made his head throb even more. "Oh, whoa, whoa, not so fast. I made that promise to a beautiful princess, not a cranky wai—Why are those logs moving?"

_**Next: DIPPER MOUTH BLUES, in which Naveen is horribly mistreated by almost everyone.**_


	11. Dipper Mouth Blues

**XI. DIPPER MOUTH BLUES**

"TH-THOSE AREN'T LOGS," TIANA STAMMERED, backing up against Naveen as big yellow eyes opened in the bumps that Naveen had taken for knotholes.

The logs were, in fact, alligators. And they were all moving towards Naveen and Tiana.

Naveen wondered if they would go away if he closed his eyes. He almost tried it, but Tiana startled him, yelping as the "log" they sat on moved. Its head rose out of the water, leered at Naveen, and said in a throaty, terrifying voice, "I got dibs on the big one."

Before Naveen could do or say anything, the thrashing of the alligators as they all lunged at once and glanced off of each other, propelled Naveen into the gray water. Fortunately, a frog was a creature well-built for swimming, and Naveen sped towards the submerged bank like the Devil was after him—or Dr. Facilier, or a hungry alligator, for that matter.

"Gotcha!" Rather than being _after_ him, another alligator moved swiftly between Naveen and the riverbank, but Naveen instinctively dived under the monster, so that by the time it resurfaced and joined the others in their argumentative search for Tiana, he was pressed up against a rotting tree stump on the bank.

Echoes of "I saw him first!", "Where'd they go?", and worst of all, "Come here, you plump, tasty morsels!" drifted across the bayou.

Naveen really hoped they hadn't eaten the waitress, or else he, a pampered prince, would be all by himself in a deserted bayou—and, as much as it pained him to admit again, incapable of anything useful here. Meanwhile, he eyed the tree speculatively, hoping its wet wood wasn't too slick for frog feet to scale. Weak with relief, he saw Tiana peering out of a hole in the trunk, encrusted with old dead vines. "Psst!" he hissed. "Lower one of the vines!"

Tiana raised an eyebrow that under much more relaxed circumstances would have made Naveen applaud. "Find your own tree!"

At this propitious moment, a flash of lightning lit Naveen against the tree and the alligators exploded again with a repeating loop of "There he is! There he is!", enlivened with "I see him! I seem him! I see him!"

"All _right_!" screeched Naveen, and he knew it. He really, really didn't want to turn his back on the alligators, but he begged Tiana, "Look, look, help me get out of this swamp—"

"Bayou—"

"Bayou—" he wanted to scream _SHUT UP AND LET ME FINISH!_, but obviously he didn't have that luxury. "—and once I marry Charlotte, I shall get you your restaurant."

Silence. Then the vine flopped onto Naveen's head, and he was hoisted up just before the biggest alligator's teeth—"Youall're gonna taste so good, basted and battered and fried!"—snapped right where he had been standing.

"Quick, quick! Pull me up!" he yelped, as the alligator clawed at the trunk.

But its being a very tall tree trunk, the alligators gave up soon, despite threats of "You can hop, but you can't hide!", which was exactly what the frogs _were_ doing, so there, and "We got all night!"

Inside the hollow trunk, it was surprisingly warm and dry. A sense of security returned to Naveen for the first time in—well, at least eight hours—and he was able to look around at leisure for the first time, too.

Not that there was much to look at inside a dark, hollow log…except the waitress, who was sitting against the wall almost right next to him, her eyes closed.

Naveen shrugged. She had been very pretty as a human. And now she was a frog. And he was a frog. And this waitress, this Tiana, was very pretty as a frog. And he had very much enjoyed actually kissing her, if not what happened after. He shrugged again, grandiosely, this time ending up with his arm "accidentally" around her shoulders.

Tiana, who had been sitting with her eyes closed, opened them with a start. "Huh?" She tried to swivel around to look at Naveen, but his arm on her shoulders made it difficult. Which was, of course, the point.

"Well, waitress," Naveen said expansively, "looks like we're going to be here for a while. So we may as well get…" he waggled his absence of eyebrows at her, "…comfortable." He rested his other hand lightly on her thigh nearest him, and leaned in for the final coup.

The downside of this particular position was that when Tiana's foot shot out reflexively, she kicked him in…well, the worst possible place. Naveen keeled over instantly, making what could only be described as cat noises of agony.

Tiana had by now leapt over to the other side of the trunk faster than when the alligators were after them. "Keep your _slimy_ self away from me!"

Naveen stopped making incoherent mewing noises long enough to glare at Tiana through blurry eyes and fire back, "I told you, it is not slime. _It is mucus!_"

.:..:..:.

Naveen must've been much more exhausted than he'd thought (which was pretty exhausted to begin with), because the next thing he knew, he awoke to weak sunlight filtering through a jagged hole above him.

The jagged hole, at least, made him remember where he was, and why, and also made this the first time in a long time that he'd woken up somewhere strange and recognized it almost instantly. The thing that was not, however, unfamiliar about waking up—for Naveen, anyways—was that a slight weight and a faint breathing seemed to rest somewhere in the region of his shoulder.

"Mmph…no, Mama…nuhgonnaplaycardswizzooo…Lotte…milkneggs…"

Naveen looked down slowly, savoring the sight of Tiana happily asleep in his arms. She was, in fact, not only no longer across the tree from him, but also slightly on top of him, and Naveen wished he had a frog-wieldable camera so he could prove to her later that this had happened.

"Donwannakissveenagain…shottatabasco…"

As it turned out, he didn't need to. After a few wickedly gleeful minutes on Naveen's part, Tiana's fingers dug slightly into his chest; her eyelids fluttered; she exhaled, opened her eyes…and looked, dumbstruck, straight into his.

"Good morning, Tiana," said Naveen.

Tiana, he could tell, was already NOT having a good morning. With a sound that was half-shriek, half-squeal, and half-gasp (Yes. Three halves. Naveen hated fractions), she shot out of his arms, smashed into the opposite wall, and slid comically down. "Was I…" she gulped. "Did I…do anything…weird?"

"Uh. Yeah. You snuggled up to me," said Naveen, crossing over to her. "And," he added, smiling into her mortified face, "you talk in your sleep. And by the way, it would not kill you to play cards with your mother once in a while."

"Who said—"

"Or to kiss me again." He smirked.

Tiana glared at him. "You snore. Gators are gone," she added quickly, leaping out of the hole.

By the time Naveen emerged into the now-bright sunlight, yawning (it was, after all, obviously at some unholy hour before noon), Tiana had crafted some kind of raft. "We gotta get back to New Orleans and undo this mess _you_ got us into," she informed him, unfriendly now that she was awake.

"Pfuit!" responded Naveen in kind as he jumped onto the raft. He had never actually _heard_ anyone say _Pfuit_ before, only read it in books, but was pleased with how it came off, so much that he repeated himself. "Pfuit! I was not the one parading around in a phony-baloney tiara."

Naveen found another unexpected source of success when a twig strung with spider webs, idly plucked from a protruding bush, made an excellent frog ukulele. His frog fingers becoming swifter as they became accustomed to strumming, he settled back onto the cattail cushions, sighing contentedly as he picked one of his favorite jazz tunes. "Music to paddle by," he explained, and got so carried away that he was startled when Tiana stopped poling and cried, "I could use a little help!"

"Oh," said Naveen. "I will play a little louder," said Naveen.

Tiana rolled her eyes and went back to paddling, so Naveen shrugged and sank back again, playing louder as promised. In a very few moments Tiana was complaining again, although she had barely begun.

"How about a little less picking and a—"

Naveen opened his eyes. Tiana's had widened.

Naveen whirled around, grabbed Tiana away from the lone alligator, and they both cowered as it opened its jaws wide…and exclaimed "I know that tune! _Dippermouth Blues_?"

Naveen opened one eye. The alligator had now pulled a trumpet out of nowhere and was playing exactly what Naveen had been! Laughing, recognizing a kindred spirit, Naveen let go of Tiana, cried "Play it, brother!", seized his makeshift ukulele, and joined in.

When the tune ended there was immediate chaos.

"Where you been all my life?"

"Where did _you_ learn to play like that?"

"What, on thishere Giselle of mine?" The alligator chuckled. "The bayou's the best jazz school in the world! All the greats play the riverboats. Old Louis'd give anything to be up there, jammin' with the big boys!"

Naveen could sympathize; oh, how he could sympathize. "So, why don't you?"

"Oh, I tried once. It didn't end well." Louis's face took on a grim expression.

"Uh-huh," said Tiana, coming up behind Naveen and breaking the spell. "It has been a real pleasure meeting you, uh, Louis, and thank you kindly for not eating us, but—" she tugged at Naveen's arm "—we best be on our way."

"What—where y'all goin'?" whimpered Louis sadly. Naveen made a sad face back at him, but also made gestures, grunts, and shrugs indicating that Tiana was not a force to be gainsaid.

"To find somebody to break this spell," answered Tiana offhandedly, proving his point.

Of course Louis's attention was caught. "What spell?"

"Brace yourself, my scaly friend!" proclaimed Naveen confidently—there were no heavy books in sight, and Louis was not a squeamish girl. "We are not frogs. We are humans."

Naveen later said that he didn't know which was worse, having your body or your pride squished flat; as it was, Tiana and Naveen looked expressively at each other for almost five minutes before a supine Louis poked his head over his still-chuckling belly. "Y'all serious?"

Naveen nodded. "I am Naveen: Prince of Maldonia…And she is Tiana. The waitress. _Do not kiss her_," he added in a whisper.

Did EVERYONE in New Orleans have preternatural hearing? Tiana's voice could be heard almost immediately. "Now just a second! I mean—not that I want to kiss anyone—"

"_She has a problem with kissing people,"_ Naveen added for Louis's benefit, although he was purposely stage-whispering this time.

"—but this goon here is the one who got himself turned into a frog by a voodoo man, and now—"

"Voodoo?" Louis shuddered. "Like the kind Mama Odie do?"

"Mama Who-dee?" repeated Naveen.

"Mama Odie. She the voodoo queen of the bayou. She got magic and spells, all kind of hoodoo."

"Could you take us to her?" said Naveen and Tiana, simultaneously.

"Owe me a soda," Tiana muttered.

"I might take you up on that," Naveen muttered back, sarcastically.

Tiana grimaced.

"Through the deepest, darkest part of the bayou? Facing razor-sharp pricker bushes and trappers and hunters with guns?" wailed Louis, who had missed the exchange. "NO."

Tiana looked discouraged, but Naveen smirked at her. "Watch and learn.

"Louis! It is too bad we cannot help you with your dream. If only you were smaller…less toothy…you could play jazz to adoring crowds without scaring them. Oh, well."

Louis, who had been playing trumpet to himself this whole time, missed a partial. Naveen pretended not to notice. "Anyway, enjoy your loneliness, my friend. _Abinaza!_" He walked back towards Tiana, who said, "Cute, but it's not going to…"

He held up a hand to stop her. _3…2…1…_

"Hey, you guys!" Louis was suddenly close to their faces. "I just had me a crazy idea! What if I ask Mama Odie to turn _me_ human?"

"Louis!" exclaimed Naveen loudly, for Tiana's benefit. "You are a genius!"

"Hallelujah!" agreed Louis. "This is gonna be one heck of a fun journey!"

_**Next: A ROYAL GUARANTEE, in which Louis wants courage, Tiana wants to go home to Kansas and her little dog too, and Naveen wants a heart and some brains. **_


	12. A Royal Guarantee

**XII. A ROYAL GUARANTEE**

"I AM BORED, LOUIS," SAID NAVEEN. "Play something."

"Please," added Tiana irritably.

Naveen beamed at her. "Why thank you."

Louis, not really needing an excuse to play his trumpet, busted out with an ascending jazz tune. The frogs listened silently as they floated on Louis's stomach through the bayou.

"I know that song," Naveen said suddenly. "_Alligator Hop_ by King Oliver!" Of course Louis would know that one.

"Yeah. You're good," Louis replied, clearly surprised. He switched over to something with a faster tempo.

"Bunk Johnson," Naveen decreed.

Louis's face split with one of his big toothy grins. Closing his lips over the trumpet mouthpiece again, he played a simple, piping melody.

Naveen chuckled. "Give me one a baby wouldn't know! Satchmo, of course!"

Louis had barely started to play again when Naveen interrupted: "I know that lick! Satchmo plays it on the—"

"—second chorus of _Jazz Lips_," Louis finished excitedly, "and the way Satchmo bends those four bars—!"

"Eight bars," Naveen corrected him.

Louis guffawed with delight.

Tiana jumped, startled by the sudden sound. Naveen turned and looked at the frog beside him; he had nearly forgotten she was there. In fact, he was not exactly pleased to remember.

"Can we please talk about something _interesting_?" she opined.

The other two looked at her in silent condemnation and then pointedly away, but Louis didn't have the same reasons as Naveen did to ignore her for long. "Let's talk about what we're all gonna do when we're human!" he suggested eventually. "I still don't know y'all very well, and it'd be a good way to fix that."

"Okay," Tiana agreed from behind Naveen, ignoring him in her turn. "You can go first, Louis. I know you wanna be a jazz player, right?"

"Oh, you betcha!" the alligator agreed eagerly. "If I were a human being, I'd head straight for New Orleans! And once I got there, I'd blow this horn so hot and strong like only you two have seen. You've heard of Louis Armstrong?"

Naveen didn't bother to look. He knew Tiana was probably shaking her head. Louis's face fell slightly.

"Sidney Bechet?"

"_I_ have," Naveen interjected smugly, and Louis grinned toothily again.

"Well, anyways, they ain't gonna be nothing compared to me! All those cats are gonna step aside when they here this old ex-gator play! Listen—" and Louis was playing again, but this time an upbeat, swingy tune Naveen couldn't place.

The gator's musically rhythmic breathing, though, dislodged Naveen and Tiana from his stomach, and they slid into the water. Tiana, Naveen noticed, seemed upset to be wet despite being an amphibian, but Naveen had a growing suspicion—one that his brief dunking did not dislodge. He laughed, wiped water out of his eyes, and grabbed his little makeshift ukulele, playing safe chords instead of trying to pick along to the unfamiliar melody. When it was done, he accosted Louis: "Did _you_ write that?"

"Even better," Louis replied, "I improvised it!"

"_Achidanza_!" said Naveen, and meant it.

"Anyways, when I'm human (as I hope to be), I'm gonna blow my horn until the cows come home," the alligator's eyes took on an oddly misty look, "and everybody's gonna bow down to me." He blew kisses to an imaginary audience. "What about you, Naveen? What're you gonna get up to?"

"Oh, man!" Naveen exclaimed. "When I'm myself again, I want just the life I had: a great big party every night. That does not sound too bad, am I right?" he added, directing the rhetorical question mostly to Louis, who looked as though he wanted an invitation, and to the butterflies who had been following the alligator-boat for a while, casting Naveen sultry glances. (It had been a bit weird at first, but just as with Tiana the frog, Naveen decided females were females.) "A redhead on my left hand," he winked, drawing a russet butterfly closer, "and a brunette on my right," he continued as her darker sister vied for his attention. Most of the butterflies were yellow, however, and they crowded in as though at a signal. "And a blonde or two to hold the candles! Now that sounds just about right, eh, Louis?"

Tiana made a sound like _tuh!_, and Naveen raised an eyebrow at her. "Life is short—when you're done, you're done," he explained, and Louis nodded emphatically. "We're on this earth to have some fun, and that's the way things are."

"Tell it, brother!" Louis cried.

"When I'm human—as I'm gonna be," he added for the ears of certain stubborn female frogs who thought everything was his fault and that they were going to be frogs forever, "I'm gonna tear it up like I did before. And that's a royal guarantee." He winked at Tiana, although the butterflies couldn't tell, and Tiana swung at him with a stick, missing, but chasing the butterflies away.

"You are getting _married_!" she reminded him.

"Oh, right." Naveen's face and spirits fell, momentarily. "I'll just have to leave a string of broken hearts behind me!" he decided quickly, brightening as Tiana frowned again. She seized his ukulele and threw it into the bayou.

"Your 'modesty' becomes you," she said sarcastically as he opened his mouth to protest, "just like your sense of 'responsibility'—but me, I've worked hard for everything I've got, and," she glared at them both, "I don't care about what YOU think 'the way things are,' is, because my way is the way it's _supposed_ to be. When _I'm_ a human being, at least _I'll act like one_!"

Naveen picked up the stick Tiana had attacked him with, broke it in half, and amused himself playing drums on Louis's scales (and his own head), while Tiana blathered on. It was like she was speaking Laurence, only not.

"'If you do your best each and every day, good things are sure to come your way: What you give is what you get.' My daddy said that, and I'll never forget. And I commend it to you, Naveen."

"Bleargh," said Naveen. He hadn't been really listening, but having perked his ears up at his own name, felt he needed something to say. Naveen, after all, was not a man (frog) who liked being without something to say. "Whatever. I do not understand what you mean to do when you are human. Louis here, is—"

"I'm gonna blow my horn!"

"Exactly. And I am going to live the high life. And you, waitress Tiana, are going to—what? Work hard? And that is it? That makes no sense unless work is fun for you, which is impossible. Louis is having fun, and I am having fun, and you are—"

"_I_ am gonna do my best to take my place in the sun," Tiana informed him, her nose in the air.

Naveen shrugged. "Whatever that means."

"What _does_ it mean?" asked Louis, ever curious.

Naveen really didn't want to hear Tiana go on and on about anything any more. If girls who prattled on about _nothing_ weren't annoying enough, prattlers who were seriousabout _something_ were just as bad, only in a different way. Maybe they were even worse. "Louis, if she wanted us to know, she would have told us," he interjected before Tiana could speak. "I am _sure_ that the waitress does not want to bother with us jazzy types any more."

"Now you hold on just one moment!" said Tiana angrily. "If you give me the chance, I don't mind telling old Louis here what he wants to know. If _you_ don't want to hear it, don't stick around. Find your own floating gator."

Naveen sighed, but was too lazy (and used to being alive) to go find his own floating gator.

Tiana glared at him for the thousandth time, then turned to Louis with a sweet smile on her face. "All my life I've loved cooking," she admitted. "I love how good food brings people together from all walks of life, warms them right up and puts little smiles on their faces. So when I was little and the old sugar mill on the river closed down, I decided one day I was gonna buy the old lot and renovate the building if it was still there, or build me a new one from the floor up."

"What were you gonna make it into?" asked Louis, disregarding the part about cooking, which was a relief, lest Louis get hungry and remember his baser instincts (as well as the two tasty frogs on his stomach). So Naveen almost laughed at the look on Louis's face, like Nik being told a fairy tale at bedtime.

_Nik._ It was the thought of Naveen's little brother, thousands of miles away, that twisted Naveen's insides painfully and transmuted his laugh into a cough.

Tiana sighed, clearly assuming Naveen was trying not to laugh at either her or Louis, or both, and answered Louis's question. "Why, a great big restaurant! Built to look like a steamboat, from the outside. The kitchen chimneys, disguised as smokestacks, and a big veranda on top for dancing in the summer under Chinese lanterns. All my recipes being stirred and baked and simmered in the kitchen. And 'Tiana's Place' across the front in big curly letters!"

"Won't that cost a lot of money?" asked Naveen. "I do not think waitresses are paid very much."

Sometimes, something makes perfect sense until you say it—then it suddenly, somehow, sounds like the stupidest thing in the world. This, Naveen realized almost before he was done speaking, was one of those times.

It was plain to see that Tiana thought so, too. "That's the _whole point_! That's why _some_ of us have had to scrimp and save and work two jobs—_three on weekends_—all our lives. What I want when I'm human, isn't fun yet, because I have to give up going dancing with my friends and having fancy tea at Lotte's house, but it's _gonna_ be worth it all once I get my restaurant. It's just that…if I don't have it, then _nothing's_ fun for me." Tiana's voice had gotten rough and low. She blinked and swallowed, and Naveen realized with a lot of embarrassment that she was close to crying.

He still didn't really understand why she wanted a restaurant, but he felt bad that Tiana had to work so hard just to make herself happy. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, but not so softly that they didn't both look up in surprise.

"You're _sorry_?" Tiana repeated. "You're a no-account lazy prince, but it's not your fault I'm…that I don't have much money."

"I know," he said lightly, trying to brush off her surprise. Meeting her eyes, he added, "I still think hard work is silly and boring, but I guess for you it is necessary, and…and I am sorry."

(Naveen wouldn't realize for a long time how condescending that sounded, but unbeknownst to him Tiana let the bugles sing truce and took it in the spirit that it was intended.)

_**Next: RAY, in which…I'll give you three guesses.**_


	13. Ray

**This has got to be one of my favorite chapters. I love Ray almost as much as I love Naveen. When I went to get myself a Naveen plushie from the Disney Store, they were having a BOGO sale so I was immediately like RAY COME TO ME CHERE! Haha. **

**And then I went back the next day and there were HUGE NAVEEN PLUSHIES THAT I HAD TOTALLY MISSED AACK**

**Well, anyways, enjoy.**

**-M.R.**

**XIII. RAY**

"NOW, THIS RESTAURANT OF YOURS," Louis continued. "Is it gonna have étouffée?"

Naveen's stomach grumbled.

"Jambalaya, gumbo—it's gonna have it all!" Tiana assured Louis.

"Mmm! I've always wanted to try red beans and rice—muffuletas—po'boys—"

"Beignets will be the house specialty, and my daddy's special andouille—" Tiana was saying.

"Stop, both of you," begged Naveen, swatting ineffectually at a cloud of passing mosquitoes although they did not attack him. "You two are making me so very hungry." The last of the mosquitoes brushed against his face just then, and his tongue shot out, missing and snapping back into his mouth.

If memory served him right, a frog's tongue was much, much longer than its body. Naveen stuck his tongue out just a little so he could see it, regarding it with new interest. That could come in handy even when he wasn't hungry. "Interesting…" He leapt off of Louis's back and into the shallow water, following the mosquito cloud.

"What are you doing?" Tiana groaned.

"Shhh. You are frightening the food." Naveen edged quietly closer. Much as he knew about frogs, Naveen didn't know anything about catching insects with one's tongue, or even anything about mosquitoes, other than that the little bastard bloodsuckers were one of the banes of his existence (as a human anyways), and also a long story—involving a profusion of pink mosquito netting—that he really didn't want to dwell on, let alone tell Tiana the waitress.

So he had no idea what he was doing when he shot out his tongue the first time. It was as though the mosquitoes could tell what he was up to; they flew very neatly out of the way, the buzzing cloud parting right down the middle, until Naveen was flopping on his back in the water, marveling at how strange it felt to laugh when you had your tongue wrapped five times around your head.

"This is harder than it looks," he said aloud for Tiana's benefit, once his tongue was back in his mouth. But he leapt up again and aimed for a mosquito resting on a bush. Naveen closed his eyes once he felt the time to aim had passed, hoping if he squeezed his eyes shut tight enough, his tongue would catch something. And it did. Naveen reeled as a stubby twig came speeding back and hit him in the mouth.

Tiana giggled. "You do realize even if you _had_ eaten one of those mosquitoes, he might've had human blood in his belly."

Naveen's emphatic disgust (both with the waitress and her all-too-valid point) was, he knew, clear even with his mouth full of twig.

Louis was gone off somewhere, presumably in search of his own dinner, and therefore could not take Naveen's side in the matter. Besides, Naveen reflected surlily, he probably wouldn't have, anyways. Everybody seemed to just be so fond of Tiana and everything was Naveen's fault; these were the facts of frog life. Grumbling to himself through the twig in his mouth, Naveen disentangled it from his tongue and set his sights on a fat bug that had just alighted on a dandelion.

Its back was to him, and Naveen grinned,—an unfortunate decision which sent his tongue lolling and snapping out of his mouth again. Naveen slapped his hands over his closed mouth, but the bug had not stirred. Aiming his tongue more confidently than before, Naveen let loose.

His long pink tongue sailed majestically through the air, straight towards the bug—and tangled itself tightly with another tongue! The dandelion exploded, the bug was gone, and Naveen's tongue suddenly came reeling back in, its owner smacking face-to-face into Tiana. Their modes of attack had been similar such that both had their mouths squashed wide open against the other's, and their limbs were intertwined in a most compromising position.

"Hello," said Naveen into Tiana's mouth.

He supposed it could have been worse. Tiana's head could have ended up _inside_ his mouth.

They struggled to their feet and both disengaged a few inches of tongue, the better to examine the knot between them. It was the sort of convoluted knot ships used to secure their sails.

"Hold still!" Tiana said, just as Naveen said "Stop moving. You are making this very difficult."

A third voice chimed in. "Y'all find anything to ea—Oh, _my_." Louis's wide eyes took in the entangled tongues and flustered frogs, arriving at the obvious conclusion. "Hang on! Old Louis got it covered!"

"No, no—"

"Don't—"

The next thing Naveen knew, he and Tiana had been wrapped up in each other's tongues courtesy of Louis. "How's that?"

"This could be a little better," said Tiana, or as far as Naveen, with the end of her tongue somewhere on his back, could make out.

"I am confused," said Naveen in his turn.

Louis frowned. "You know what this needs? A sharp stick! Be right back!" and he was gone again.

"This is all your fault!" quoth Tiana by rote.

"My fault, my fault—Let me tell you something," snarled Naveen. "I was having a wonderful time until—"

"Now _listen_—"

Once again they were interrupted. But the voice wasn't Louis's. "Coo! Well looky here! Girl, I guess you and your boyfriend got a little carried away, am I right?" It was the fat bug they had both tried to eat.

"Oh, no, no, no, he's not my boyfriend—" began Tiana, cut off by "Do not be ridiculous! I am the prince of Maldonia!" from Naveen; but the bug forestalled them both.

"Uh-huh. Let me shine a little light on the_ situation_." In a very few moments the bug's abdomen was alight, and Naveen, who was balanced very precariously on top of Tiana, gave a muffled yell and almost toppled them both.

"Oh, it's okay, baby. I don't explode, me. I ain't no firecracker! I just got my big butt glowin'! That's right! The women _like_ a man with a big back porch!"

Naveen, who had more hangovers and headaches in the last month than he cared to count, made low growling noises to himself as the bug waggled his blindingly bright behind right in Naveen's face.

"Lord, you done this up real good, for sho'," the bug continued, examining the tangle. "Now where this go to, at?"

Naveen growled aloud as the bug snapped his tongue against his body.

"Hang on, Cap. I'm just gonna give this a little twist, here—"

"No—!" began Naveen, but to no avail; Tiana gave a muffled yelp as the bug wriggled his way in between the frogs' bodies. Light shone and snatches of dialogue and song emanated from every possible orifice of the tangle. Tiana and Naveen looked at each other in utter confusion.

"We're getting to _know_ each other, now! Woohoo! _Won't you catch a fish? Catch one, catch two. We're back in the bayou 'round fishing time_—" of _course_ it was Naveen's tongue the bug emerged with, gave a great yank on, and sent sprawling. Not that Naveen wasn't glad to be free of Tiana's tongue (for now), but now _his_ tongue hurt just like the rest of him.

"It's about time I introduce myself," announced the bug. Good, he had SOME sense of shame. "My name Raymond. But everybody call me Ray."

"Pardon me," said Naveen, who could not have gotten this point across easily before, "but—your accent—it's funny, no?"

"Ooh, I'm a Cajun, brah! Born and bred in the bayou! Y'all must be new around here, huh?"

"Actually," Naveen agreed, "we are from a place far, far away from this world."

Ray gasped excitedly. "Go to bed!—Y'all from Shreveport?"

"I—uh—No, no, no. No, we are people," Naveen explained, feeling more confused than Ray should have been.

"Prince Charming here got himself turned into a frog by a voodoo witch doctor," Tiana said drily. Ray beamed (no pun intended) down at her, comprehension dawning (pun intended) upon his face.

"Well, there you go." He raised an eyebrow (it was, in fact, completely unfair that insects had eyebrows and frogs did not) at Naveen, who shrugged sheepishly.

"And we were on our way to Mama Odie's," continued Tiana. "We think maybe she can—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Mama Odie?"

"Mhm."

"Y'all headed the wrong directional, _chèrie_. Now what kinda chucklehead told y'all to go thisaway?"

"I found a stick!" Louis burst out of the bushes at that moment, stopping short at the looks on all three of the faces before him.

"Louis…" Tiana began warningly, crossing her arms. "Ray the firefly here says you've been taking us in the wrong direction."

Naven personally thought "firefly" was a very misleading name for a bug that "ain't no firecracker."

Louis dropped his stick. "I—I was—Well, listen. I was confused by the, uh, topography and the buh, uh, uh, geography…and the _choreography_—"

"First rule of the bayou," Ray said in an undertone to Naveen and Tiana as they watched Louis dancing on the spot. "Never take direction from a gator." He whistled suddenly, and the whole bayou was suddenly ablaze with fireflies. "Why, me and my relationals will help show y'all the way!"

"_Achidanza_!" breathed Naveen, watching the trees, the sky, the water all shimmer and sparkle like living gold. It was almost bright as day.

"Hey, cousin Randy—you ready for a little bayou zydeco?" Ray appealed to his "relationals."

"Ready when you are, cousin Ray!"

"All right! Lulu, let's hop to it, darlin'!" Ray sped back towards the frogs. "Come on, _chèrie_! Just follow the bouncing butt!"

Sometimes Naveen was so busy dancing instead of hopping that Tiana had to pull him along. And why not? Their trip back down the bayou was accompanied by a veritable Carnaval of light shows, firefly fiddling, and the occasional explanation or exclamation from Ray:

"We got the whole family! There go Mimi, cousin Beaudreaux…Oh Grandmamaw! Yo' light out! We all gonna pull together," he added in an aside to the frogs. "Down here, that's how we do: Me for them and them for me. We all be there for you.

"Yeah, you know! Come on, y'all! Keep that line flowin' an' the lights a-glowin'! yeah, you're right!

"_Tout de suite_, come on!

"Looks like we getting close!

"I hope somebody know where we is. 'Cause I'm lost, me…"

_**Next: STICK IN THE MUD, in which Naveen is a bump on a log, but Tiana's a stick in the mud…but logs are sticks, no? Achidanza, so does that make me a stick in Tiana's mud? AHAHA! (NAVEEN WAS HERE ABINAZA LOLOLOLOL)**_


	14. Stick In The Mud

**Ehehe. Sorry about that last "Next" segment, by the way. That is what happens when I don't get coffee, and also when I write several chapters in one sitting. I really REALLY wanted to finish, and didn't end up going to bed until my desk chair ordered me to.**

…**Yeah, exactly.**

**-M.R.**

**XIV. STICK IN THE MUD**

"I'LL TAKE 'EM THE REST O' THE WAY!" Ray reassured the glittering crowd as they dispersed, murmuring a farewell.

"Goodbye, y'all!" cried Tiana.

"Bye-bye, Pookie!" Louis waved.

"Goodbye!" said Naveen.

"And don't forget to tell Angela, Ray-Ray say, _Bonne chance_!" Ray yelled after them.

"Angela?" echoed Tiana curiously. "That your girl?"

"Oh, no, no, no!" Ray chuckled. "My girl? That's Evangeline."

"Evangeline?"

"She the most prettiest firefly ever did glow," squealed Ray. He had the strangest expression on his face, peaceful like he was going to fall asleep, but there was something in his eyes that Naveen'd never seen before. "You know, I talk to Evangeline most every night. She's kind of shy. Don't say much. And I know in my heart, someday, we are going to be together, yeah."

"Aw! That's so _sweet_!" Tiana gushed, nudging Naveen with a stick (_another stick_? _Achidanza_, what was it with the waitress and carrying sticks around? To torment him?) as they crawled between pricker bushes. Tiana pushed aside big leaves and sharp prickers with her stick.

"Yeah. So sweet," Naveen echoed dully. He stretched out against a log, flexing his fingers. "Just—do not settle down so quickly, my friend. There are plenty of fireflies in the swamp," he clarified for the firefly, who despite his easy familiarity was obviously as naïve and callow as a child.

Tiana groaned.

"What?" Naveen asked.

Tiana just shook her head and kept hopping along in front of Naveen, stopping occasionally to push obstacles aside. Naveen had to hurry close after her so he didn't run into the plant's leaves and pricker burrs, grumbling about people (or frogs) who spoiled everything fun for everyone else by going on and ON about how not-fun THEIR lives were. "What?!" he demanded again.

There was a long silence, which Naveen was too proud and frustrated to break a third time, during which Tiana continued to ignore him. But eventually Naveen got bored, and devised a way to get Tiana to talk. "You know, waitress," he said with commendable sangfroid, "I have finally figured out what is wrong with you."

Tiana stopped walking, presumably to wipe sweat from her brow. "Have you, now?" she called back, whacking away at a leaf beside her without turning even a fraction of an inch towards Naveen.

Naveen nodded, then remembered she couldn't—or wouldn't—see him. "You," he pronounced, "do not know how to have fun. There. Someone had to say it."

"Thank you!" Tiana said in a syrupy-sweet voice, looking over her shoulder at him. "Because I figured out what your problem is, too."

Naveen was astonished. _His_ problem? He did not have any problems—unless you counted being completely broke, having been turned into a tasty frog, and having as companions on his quest for humanity a lovesick firefly, a neurotic (if talented) alligator—although it was Louis that Naveen preferred most of the bunch—and a grumpy waitress who had tricked him into kissing her.

But Tiana, who had just beaten the stubborn leaf into submission and gone onwards while Naveen was thinking, seemed to be referring to personality problems, so Naveen thought about those. He didn't have any. Ha! So there, Tiana the waitress! However, he could tell she thought she was serious, so he knit his brows again. The only thing he could offer up was: "I'm…too wonderful?"

The leaf sprang back and knocked Naveen over. Tiana doubled back, looking smugly down at him and swinging her stick at him like it was a sword she was about to challenge—or stab—him with. "No," she said simply. "You're a no-'count, philandering, lazy bump on a log."

Naveen dodged her stick's jabs, mentally discounting her verbal ones. Lazy? Sure. Philandering? Well, obviously—it was a long word, but Naveen had heard it too many times, usually directed at him, to NOT know what it meant. Bump on a log? Whatever _that_ was. But no-account? Naveen ignored how close to home that hit.

Straightening, he laughed low in his throat in anticipation as Tiana turned to go. "Killjoy," he coughed.

Tiana whirled on the spot—then seemed to regain her composure. "What'd you say?" she asked, as sweetly as before.

"Oh, nothing," replied Naveen in a voice equally friendly, and "coughed" again once her back was turned. "A—stickinthemud!"

Before he knew it Tiana was poking him threateningly in the chest—although, fortunately, with her finger and not she sharp end of her stick, which she had thrown aside. "Listen here, mister," she spat. "I'm—I've _been_—doing all the heavy lifting, and you never lift a finger! In case you'd forgotten, this 'stick in the mud' has had to work two jobs her whole life, while _you've_ been sucking on a silver spoon, chasing chambermaids around your—your ivory tower!"

Naveen missed the literary allusion; which was a shame, because he could've pointed out that he was not a philosopher or an academian. Being Naveen, he went for the simpler retort.

"Actually, it's polished marble," he grumped. "But fair's fair. Now it is _my_ turn to show you what you have been missing." He crept up behind Tiana and grabbed her before she could so much as react to his words, and dragged her a few feet way, out of the pricker bush thicket, to a small clearing from which they could see the moon shining like a silver coin.

"What are you doing? Let me go!" Tiana protested.

Naveen rolled his eyes. He sat Tiana down hard in the dirt and jabbed a finger up at the moon. "Look! A beautiful full moon! I bet you cannot stop and enjoy it for thirty seconds!"

Tiana gaped at him, her eyebrows drawing together. She looked up at Naveen, opened her mouth probably to give a cutting reply, but what came out as rapidly as water from a faucet was "One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine—"

"No, no, no," Naveen interrupted the quick flow of numbers. He turned her face back towards the moon. "It helps if you look at the moon when you are admiring it. And _I_ will count." He took a big, ostentatious breath, enjoying Tiana's silent fuming. "We start with one…and then comes two…three…then four…five…"

About two minutes later, Naveen wished he hadn't counted fifteen through twenty at the right speed. He was enjoying himself way too much. "Twenty-eiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight…"

"You're going too slow," growled Tiana.

"Twenty-badini…twenty-caldonza…"

"Twenty-cal what?!"

"In Maldonia we have two numbers between twenty-eight and twenty-nine," Naveen told her.

He didn't think he needed to mention that this only counted when you were counting in hide-and-go-seek, to ward off bad luck, because you didn't want to find anything else other than the people you were searching for; and that consequently Naveen had not counted like this since he was eight. "Twenty-nine—augh!"

Naveen never made it to thirty. A net descended from nowhere over his face and pulled him away from the ground and his fuming companion.

"Ooh, I got me one, boys!" leered a small, rough-shaven man, holding Naveen up to his face so he could get a closer look. Too close for Naveen, who could smell the man's disgusting breath. "Y'all get that little one over there!"

Panic shot through Naveen's veins. "Tiana!" he cried, and had just enough time to see her leap away from another approaching human before his own prison began to move. As his captor walked, Naveen flailed against the net, but it was no use; the holes were too small and the netting was too sturdy.

"That's good hunting today, yes indeed!" the man chuckled, waving the Naveen net around in the air. "Look at them big frog legs! I want me some corn bread with this dinner!"

Naveen struggled in the net, as much to free himself as to create noise that would drown out the sickening words—and the equally-nauseating breath.

Next thing he knew, Naveen heard Ray scream something and then the net was flying through the air and Naveen was flying out of it. The net landed in the boat but Naveen landed in the water. He had barely time to take in the ghastly spectacle of the man's nose glowing with the light of a loyal firefly, before Ray was hurled out of the man's nose and crashed into a rock.

Then Naveen was celebrating his own escape, but the other two men came hurtling out of the bushes, slammed a chicken-wire cage into the boat with a triumphant cry of "Pa, we got one!" and climbed in after it, using it as a seat.

"What happened to yours?"

"Shut your trap, Darnell!"

"Free!" cried Naveen aloud, now that they were safely out of frog-hearing range. He wiggled his fingers mockingly at the back of the boat, scatting to himself in a celebratory way. Louis would be proud.

Tiana's terrified face peered through the octagonal meshes of the trap and Naveen stopped mid-victory dance, his singing veins turning to ice. "Tiana!"

_Think, think, think_…Desperately, Naveen sent his tongue flying towards the back of the rowboat. It actually seemed to slow down the boat for a second…but then the relash happened and Naveen was sent, once more, flying into something with his mouth open against it. The momentum of his crash flopped Naveen into the rowboat and he, brain working frantically as he crawled, stole his way over to the prow and up his former captor's back.

"Pa!" cried the big fat man who had caught Tiana. "Did you hear that suspicious thud?"

"Yeah. I sure did," said Pa, removing his cap and scratching what he thought was his head. Naveen, wobbling as the man's filthy fingers stroked his back, frantically dug his own fingers against the man's actual scalp.

Tiana gasped.

Naveen held a finger to his lips.

The big fat guy and the guy with two fingers stared at Pa—or, more precisely, at Naveen.

Naveen and Pa stared right back.

The men rose to the bait beautifully.

"What you two gawking at?" Pa demanded, just before the club the big fat one was holding came smashing down on his father's head. Naveen leapt out of the way gracefully just in time.

"Just missed him!" the fat son exclaimed, as Naveen jumped into midair still sitting. He waggled his eyebrows at Tiana in triumph.

Naveen did a cartwheel just as the "I will make him pay for his insolence!" blow descended.

Tiana giggled as Naveen yawned mid-jump.

"Two Fingers!" bellowed Pa, while Naveen did a _bourré en l'air_ to make a ballet dancer weep. "I need some help over here!"

_Now! Go!_ Naveen mouthed at Tiana. She took advantage of the absence of rump holding her cage closed and scarpered.

"WOULD YOU STOP THAT?!" Pa bellowed at his trigger- (or rather club-) happy son. He choked on his next sentence as Naveen crawled over his face—but didn't block his eyes from seeing Two Fingers aiming a gun at him.

"Hold still."

Just then, Tiana landed, out of nowhere, on the gun, her sudden weight causing it to move down as it fired and _just_ miss Pa's crotch.

"Yeesh," said Naveen, shuddering at the thought as he landed on Two Fingers's foot next to Tiana. "Watch this!" he told her, and began a ribbit at the big fat guy, who shrieked in a most un-big-fat-guy-ish way and stepped on his companion's foot. The frogs scattered, and Two Fingers yelped—once, then twice as Naveen and Tiana raced over Two Fingers's head and nearly missed being hit. They jumped on to the fat man's head—he received the same treatment from Two Fingers—

And then there was a great deal of confusion of frog tongues and leaping and clubs and guns and flying hats and the next thing Naveen knew, the three men were lying on the floor of the rowboat in a bruised and bloodied heap. Grinning, Naveen offered his hand to Tiana, who accepted it in the same triumphant spirit as they landed on the fat guy's stomach and surveyed their team handiwork.

"These two ain't like no frogs I ever seen," mumbled Pa weakly, as "these two" inspected him and Two Fingers for signs of fighting back again. "They smart."

"And we talk, too!" giggled Tiana.

Naveen barely had time to do a double take before the men screamed, flung their almost-victims over the side, and rowed away for dear life.

Naveen and Tiana leaned on each other, gasping for breath between laughter and exhaustion, as they walked back towards where Ray, revived by Louis, was picking prickers off of the alligator's tender underbelly.

"'And we talk, too!'" he repeated for the fifth time, calming his laughter. "I like that. You—he jabbed a finger at Tiana "—are secretly funny."

"_Not_ a stick in the mud?" Tiana teased, causing Naveen to stop short.

"Well, I wouldn't go _that_—"

"Say it! Say it!" Tiana poked him in the stomach, and Naveen yelped. No one had tickled him since he was three.

"All right!" he wheezed, pretending reluctance. "You're not _exactly_…"

Tiana smirked, cupping a hand to her ear (or where it should be). "I can't hear you, I'm sorry, what?"

"…a complete stick _deep_ in the mud," he finished with an impish grin, but Tiana seemed satisfied.

"Why thank you kindly," she said, sketching a curtsy, which seemed difficult as she was a) still a frog, b) still walking, and c) still walking with Naveen's arm slung across her shoulders as they laughed together. "And now _you_ get a compliment: Thanks, again. For saving my life," she added softly, under his puzzled gaze.

"Oh," said Naveen inadequately. "I mean—uh—of course I saved your life! Nobody's that selfish—no, not even me," he added lightly, hoping to disperse the serious expression that hung over Tiana's face like fog over the bayou. She shrugged and looked down, kicking at a small pebble.

"Yeah, but if you hadn't noticed I was gone, you wouldn't have had to put up with me lecturing and blaming and bugging you anymore."

"You do not _bug_ me, Tiana, that is what Ray is for," Naveen said, joking again. He was relieved to see a little smile creep up Tiana's cheeks, because he didn't want to have to tell her about the weird panic he'd felt watching her as she'd floated away in a cage. "But, fine, you are welcome. Now let's go and help Ray pull those pricky things off of poor Louis."

_**Next: MINCING WORDS, in which Naveen is no longer useless, or at least not entirely.**_


	15. Mincing Words

**XV. MINCING WORDS**

"—AND THE SOONER THEY FIGURES IT out, the bettah," Ray was saying. "Then they gonna be happy ever after, jus' like me 'n' my Evangeline—"

Louis raised an eyebrow as the frogs approached with their arms slung about each other's shoulders. "Hey-hey, Ray," he interrupted loudly, "would you look at those two turtledo—HOLY!" he gnashed his teeth, pounding his fists against the ground.

Naveen and Tiana took advantage of Louis's distraction to remove themselves from each other (amidst much clearing of throats and half-muttered apologies to nobody in particular) by about a foot. Naveen hoped Tiana wasn't thinking what Naveen was thinking about Ray's words, but a glance at her flushed cheeks told him she was just as embarrassed as he.

"Oh, _chèrie_," came Ray's voice from behind Louis's beprickered bottom, "I know we gots to get to Mama Odie lickety-split, but this particular extractification is gonna take awhile, yeah."

"Aw, poor Louis!" cried Tiana.

The big alligator did his best to smile at her. "You know what would make me feel bett—AHHH! Ooh…crawfish, smothered in ramoulade sauce—MERCY!"

"Just a little more, Louis!" Louis's rump spoke again.

"—with some bananas Foster," Louis was saying, "sprinkled with pralines—OH MAMA!"

Tiana walked over to a nearby squat gourd, rapped on its side, and smiled at what she heard. "How about some swamp gumbo?"

Naveen's opinion was voiced by Louis, who immediately stopped bawling: "That'll do—OH GAWD!"

"Sounds delicious!" Naveen seconded, reclining against a nearby tree root and propping his froggy legs up on an obliging mushroom. "I'll start with a pre-dinner cocktail, and something to nibble on while I wait. Thanks."

"Oh, nonononono, Your Royal Highness," laughed Tiana, tying a leaf around her waist in lieu of an apron and uprooting the mushroom beneath his feet. She handed him a sliver of rock from the ground. "You are gonna mince these mushrooms."

It was so quiet you could have heard a jaw drop. Naveen's, for instance. "D-do _what_?!" he stammered to Tiana's retreating back.

"Mince the mushrooms!" the reply floated back, as she disappeared up a plant stalk. "Hop to it!"

Naveen held the mushroom in one hand and the sharp rock in the other. "…just a little ridiculous," he grumbled.

"Are you mincing?"

"All right!" Naveen shot back, a little angrily, given the little ridiculousness. "Relax." He sighed, poking the mushroom experimentally with the stone sliver, to no effect. And sighed again.

Naveen was all but ready to pitch the mushroom, stone, and his newfound truce with Tiana into the bayou, until he remembered what she'd said before they got attacked by the frog hunters:

"…_no-'count, philandering, lazy bump on a log…"_

He had to just prove her wrong _once_, that was all. It couldn't be _that_ hard, except on his pride. Snarling, Naveen bore the mushroom and stone over to a flattish tree root and tried to slice into the thick stem.

Naveen sound found that there must be some sort of secret art to cutting a mushroom. The tough stem resisted the stone's sharp edge, only bruising under the pressure. He let out a grunt of frustration, stabbing the very point into the bruise—which gave. Easing his "knife" into the crack with the sort of triumphal air normally seen on newly-crowned emperors, Naveen sawed away, finally severing the entire round of mushroom. "One." _And too many more to go…_He wiped his sweaty brow and looked around.

The gourd had a fire crackling away merrily underneath it already. Poised over the top was Tiana, watching Naveen's exertions with an obvious mixture of amusement and amazement on her face. She leapt nimbly down and strode towards him. "Step aside, mister. Watch and learn."

She cut the rest of the mushroom, not into more slices, but into tiny pieces; and did it so rapidly that Naveen was honestly surprised to see that Tiana had any fingers left when she removed a steadying hand from underneath the knife, where the minced mushrooms glinted dully in the moonlight. Smirking, she placed the next mushroom in front of Naveen.

"Oh! All right," he exclaimed uncomfortably, wishing she would go away so he could not-understand in peace. But, reading the look in his eyes, Tiana placed her hand over his on the knife, gently guiding the angle and stroke of the knife so that their hands yielded minced mushrooms before Naveen's astonished eyes. Much to Naveen's embarrassment (which Tiana's having to help him had somehow failed to stir before), he felt heat rise to his cheeks and arms.

And despite having been leaning over a cooking fire all this time, Tiana's hand over Naveen's was very cold. He worried that she would feel his change in temperature as a result, and guess the cause of it. However, Naveen decided it could have been worse. At least the blood was in his cheeks and not—

"There you go," declared Tiana, exhibiting to the others "their" pile of minced mushroom.

Naveen laughed weakly and, gathering up armfuls, followed Tiana. "You know," he told her, "I've never done anything like this before."

"Really?" asked Tiana, with such obviously faked astonishment that Naveen laughed aloud.

"All right," he said, dumping the mushrooms into the cooking-gourd. "But when you live in a castle, everything is done for you. All the time!" Naveen could hear an edge of incredulity rising in his own voice, despite having been used to it; it was weird, saying all of this aloud, in a place where no one took it for granted. "They dress you. They feed you. Drive you. Brush your teeth!"

"Oh, poor baby," crooned Tiana, running the effect by smirking impishly before she had quite turned back to the gourd. Naveen chuckled.

"I admit it was a charmed life, until the day my parents cut me off—" his voice broke. His eyes were dry, but he felt a strange sensation, as though he would actually have liked to cry, so he turned hastily back to the unminced mushrooms. Clearing his throat, he minced and continued, aimlessly at first, "and—and, suddenly, I realized—" Naveen's eyes widened as he admitted it to himself was well as the others, for the first time out loud: "I don't know how to do _anything_." He slumped down, propping his chin morosely on his elbow.

There was a pause, and then Tiana came up behind him, gathering up what he had just finished mincing. "We-ell," she said, hesitantly but brightly, "hey, you got the makings of a decent mushroom mincer." She flicked a morsel of mushroom at him and started off again.

Naveen picked up the mushroom piece and chewed on it reflectively, looking at her. "Oh? You think so?"

Tiana winked. "Keep practicing and I just might hire you."

"Really?"

"No."

Naveen groaned. "Come on! Stop laughing!"

Tiana laughed even harder. Naveen thought for a moment she might fall into the gumbo.

"What was that?!" he tasked her. "That was WAY below the frog belt!"

.:..:..:.

"…SO YOU GOIN' TO SEE A BLIND NUTRIA," Ray continued. For a firefly who told perpetual jokes all through dinner, Naveen noticed his bowl of gumbo had been empty first of anyone's. "You say 'Hello.' And he say 'What?' And you say: 'That a _ugly_ fish,' yeah!"

It was probably a good thing _everyone's_ bowl of Tiana's amazing gumbo was empty, Naveen decided as he wiped tears of mirth out of his eyes, because otherwise someone would choke while laughing. Now all they had to worry about was laughing so hard they threw up.

They were all so worked up _already _that when Naveen voiced this hypothesis aloud, everyone keeled over backwards, guffawing.

"Anyone for seconds?" asked Tiana, when they were all (relatively) calm again.

"That was magnificent!" Naveen told her, jumping up quickly, despite his distended stomach, so that he could hand Tiana his bowl to refill. "You truly have a gift."

A shadow passed briefly over Tiana's face, but she replied, "Why…thank you."

Ray suddenly gasped as Naveen returned to his seat (which was another mushroom, of course) with a full bowl.

"There she is!" breathed the firefly, transfixed. He rose above the bayou cattails. "The sweetest firefly in all creation!"

_**Next: JUST TRANSLATING, in which Naveen is utterly bewildered.**_


	16. Just Translating

**XVI. JUST TRANSLATING**

"EVANGELINE?" TIANA GASPED EXCITEDLY, jumping after him and looking around. Naveen did, too, for curiosity's sake.

"I wanna meet this girl!" Louis gurgled from the bottom of his gumbo bowl. "Where she at?"

"How you can miss her?" gaped Ray. "She glowin' right up there in front o' y'all."

Naveen's eyes followed Ray's rapt stare eagerly…and found the North Star, the brightest star in the sky.

He looked down at Tiana next to him, who was looking back at Naveen with the same confused expression Naveen thought he must have on his own face.

"Look how she lights up the sky, _ma belle Evangeline_," cooed Ray.

Naveen looked at Tiana again, this time to make some sort of joke about how some fireflies seemed to have been raised in cuckoo's nests. His smile faded as he saw the expression on Tiana's face, as she gazed at the crazy firefly, go from confused to…what was it? Not sympathy, but something kinder and sweeter. Naveen's quip about Ray died on his lips, and a strange pain twisted his insides.

He clapped a hand over his mouth, as much to restrain the insult to Ray as to keep himself from throwing up, and really hoped Tiana hadn't noticed. It couldn't be the gumbo, could it? A poisonous mushroom, or something? Well, he didn't know, but what he _did_ sense was that if he so much as voiced the suggestion, he'd be dead right then and there—laid low by an angry cook, not her gumbo ingredients.

Naveen started violently as he recognized Tiana's expression. It dredged up a long-, purposely buried memory, a weeping woman with brown hair hanging limp about her face:

"_Please—please don't leave me. I love you."_

The memory of that singular woman was so deeply repressed that all Naveen really remembered was that one moment before he had walked out the door: Her face. And now, the look on Tiana's face was something like the face of a woman in love.

Well—not _quite_, Naveen hedged mentally. Tiana couldn't really be in love with Ray, could she? That'd be, well, sort of weird. And Ray was in love with some…_thing_…else, anyways. But whatever Tiana was feeling, she had that same softness in her face. Thinking of the other woman again, Naveen wondered idly what he would feel like if _Tiana_ ever looked at _him_ like that.

Yeah, in his _nightmares_, she would! No wonder his insides squirmed at the thought!

Just then, Louis laughed loudly. "That ain't no fire—" but Naveen chucked his gumbo bowl at the alligator's head and held a finger to his lips when Louis looked down.

Ray might be cuckoo, but he had that love look on his face for sure, and Naveen didn't want to ruin it. Not only would it upset Tiana, but Naveen was intrigued. He was seeing something entirely new, that he didn't want to ruin for Ray, either.

He'd heard about true love in fairy tales, but that was all they were, just stories. Naveen didn't know love from pea soup. His parents had had an arranged marriage; if they had "learned" to love each other, they didn't spend enough time around Naveen for him to be able to tell, anyways. Naveen was pretty sure he loved Nik, because of how his little brother was the only person in Maldonia that Naveen really missed, but even Naveen knew loving your brother was different than this, this True Love…thing.

The closest he had ever been to a person in love was that woman.

He didn't even remember her name.

"So far above me, yet I know her heart belongs to only me!" Ray sighed just then, proving Naveen's point. Tiana looked at Naveen again and they both shrugged, but Tiana's face still had some vestiges of that soft look on it, and Naveen's stomach lurched again.

Forestalling even the _possibility_ of nausea, Naveen edged closer to the edge of the lilypad so he could hear the firefly's raptures. He was curious about True Love now it was in front of him, just the way he was curious about frogs now that he was one.

Ray seemed to almost swoon with bliss. _"Je t'adore—"_

"I adore you," whispered Naveen to Tiana.

"_Je t'aime—"_

"I love you."

Tiana looked at Naveen like he was the crazy one, not Ray.

"What?" he hissed. "I'm just translating!"

It bothered Naveen that Tiana had mistaken his words. It also bothered Naveen that Tiana had rejected him under that misapprehension, although he supposed he should've expected as much.

AND it bothered Naveen that he was bothered at all by her dismissal in the first place.

But Naveen was bothered most of all because what was most bothersome of the two was that Tiana had rejected him, not that she had misunderstood him. Why was that? It wasn't as if he _did_ love or adore her, or as if he cared whether _she_ loved or adored him. It was already pretty clear they hated each other—seeing as how their moments of camaraderie were few, and sprouted from their constant mockery of each other. It was also very clear that Tiana was never going to let him put a ring (horror of horrors), let alone a move, on her. He'd already accepted that. You couldn't win them all, even if you were Prince Naveen of Maldonia, because with _this_ one there was the whole awkward frog-kiss…thing. And the one effectively nixed the all. Oh, well. Naveen let his shoulders sag in a shrug. It didn't matter.

"Evangeline…"

_Why did it matter?_

Naveen decided to focus entirely on Ray's soliloquy once more.

"You're my queen of the night: so still—so bright."

"Isn't it beautiful?" sighed Tiana rapturously.

"…that someone as beautiful as she could love someone like me," sighed Ray, just as rapturously.

Naveen looked at Tiana. She had that look in her eyes as she gazed at the stars, again. It _was _beautiful.

Louis, for once tactful, extracted his trumpet from his tail's grasp and began playing a sultry yet pretty waltz tune, very quietly, as accompaniment to Ray's sweet words.

On an impulse, Naveen grabbed Tiana's hand, pulling her up and close to him.

As soon she realized what he was doing, she pulled away. "Oh—no! I don't dance!"

"Love always finds a way—it's true…" crooned Ray.

When Naveen tried again, Tiana turned away, and sprang towards a neighboring lilypad, bowing her head.

"I've never danced," she said softly, turning back towards him, her eyes sad.

Naveen felt that weird feeling in his insides again. He felt as though before he even raised his arms to pull Tiana's lilypad towards him, something inside of him had reached out towards _her_. He felt his own face soften into a smile, but whether or not it was in the same way, who could say?

"If I can mince, you can dance," he told Tiana, who accepted this idea so dazedly that all he had to do was pull her into his arms again, take her hand…

"And I love you, Evangeline…hoo, yeah…"

At first Tiana wobbled a lot, but as Naveen coaxed her, gently, on, she grew accustomed to the waltz he led her through.

It was Tiana who took his hand and jumped into the water where, amphibious creatures that they were, they flirted with underwater waltzing. Naveen thought that there was a glow in the water: radiating from either the full moon or Tiana's eyes.

"Love is beautiful…love is wonderful…love is everything, do you agree? _Mais, oui_!" chuckled Ray above them. "Look how she lights up the sky…"

Naveen didn't need to look up to see what Ray meant: As they leapt out of the water and back onto their lilypad, Tiana laughed aloud. But when Naveen tipped the now-unprotesting Tiana back, she just looked up at him, her hazel eyes huge and soft and reflecting Evangeline in their depths.

"Oh…"

Naveen involuntarily drew in his breath, too.

"I love you, Evangeline…" concluded Ray softly, still seemingly insensible of his audience.

Not that he had much of an audience anymore: Naveen had never been so concentrated on one woman as he was concentrated on the frog he held in his arms. As Naveen pulled Tiana up towards him, her eyes drifted shut; Naveen blinked at the sight, and forgot how to open _his_.

He could feel her breath against his lips…her hands pressing lightly on his chest…

And then both of them had their eyes open, and Tiana was saying, "Uh…" in a chiding sort of way, and Naveen, although his head was clanging like a cathedral bell, snapped out of it.

"Uh," he echoed.

_What just happened?_

"Lotte's getting herself one heck of a dance partner," Tiana chuckled.

_What just happened?_

Oh, yeah, thought Naveen. Lotte La Bouff. What he didn't comprehend was: How could he feel even more miserable about marrying Miss La Bouff than he had before?

_And WHAT JUST HAPPENED?_

"We'd best be pushing on," said Tiana, and turned to swim for the bank.

Naveen opened his mouth, presumably to ask her both of his questions, and found that she was gone. He sighed.

When he saw the shadow of the claw behind him, he screamed what came to mind as he was whisked away: "TIANA!"

"NAVEEN!" The last thing he thought he'd see on Earth was Tiana standing on the riverbank, her mouth forming his name, albeit with horror.

And then he thought it was his only three friends in all the world, stampeding after him.

The creature, of which he saw nothing but its shadow, dragged Naveen along at an eerie speed: He clung desperately to a tree's roots, but they only offered him and his friends in hot pursuit the purchase of a few seconds before he was pried loose.

And then—

_**Next: DIG A LITTLE DEEPER, in which, oddly enough, Naveen understands more than Tiana does.**_


	17. Dig A Little Deeper

**I know it's early, AND it's a pivotal chapter, but I'm home sick and quite frankly depressed, PLUS, COUGH no one's been reviewing much and it maketh me sad COUGH AHEM. So what the hell. Here you go.**

**-M.R.**

**P.S. You know you type too fast (or SOMETHING) when your period button's jammed. WTF.**

**XVII. DIG A LITTLE DEEPER**

IT WAS ALL OVER VERY QUICKLY.

As the flames hit the shadowy menaces they shrieked and fled; Naveen plunged into the water and was grateful to be there. Looking around for his savior, he saw a shadow (not a "shadow" like the beastly ones he had just escaped, thank goodness): big, hulking, and bearing a club.

_It was the big fat guy!_

And then the figure came over the rise, and it was only a wizened, wrinkled, dark, stooped old woman in white linen and gold jewelry, holding aloft a dry gourd set afire, and cackling her head off. "Not bad for a one-hundred-ninety-seven-year-old blind lady!" she screeched, but not in an unpleasant way. "Now, which one of you naughty children been messing with the Shadow Man?"

Naveen cringed.

"Y'all don't need to tell me at once," she said a bit sarcastically, after a short silence. "Not like I don't know already. Prince Froggy!" she suddenly yelped into Naveen's face.

"Yiiiii!" Naveen yelped back. "Uh…I meant…yes, ma'am?"

"Call me Mama Odie." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder, but it didn't seem to point in any particular direction; Naveen remembered she was blind. "If y'all follow me, we kin get y'all outta here in time."

_In time?_ Tiana mouthed at Naveen.

"In time," echoed Mama Odie, and Tiana jumped. Mama Odie cackled, and Naveen wondered how on earth she could've seen Tiana's reaction. "Jus' follow ya mama, chi'ren, and you'll see what I mean."

As Ray had told them, Mama Odie lived in a boat in a tree that had colored bottles tied to its branches. The sound of the bottles, tinkling like windchimes, underscored Tiana's enthusiastic babbling.

"We're _so _glad we found you, Mama Odie! Ray and Louis here been telling us all about you. We've been traveling quite a long way, and you can't _imagine_ what we've been through."

"I am sure she can," Naveen mumbled. "She is a voodoo priestess, and all."

Tiana ignored him. "And we—" she skidded into Naveen, who was staring at a pair of eyeballs in a jar. The eyeballs stared straight back at them.

Tiana gulped. "And we heard that you—"

"JUJU!" Mama Odie screeched suddenly, and a large snake dropped from the ceiling. "Come over here, you bad boy! Give us a little sugar, now! Y'all just loves ya mama, doncha?"

"…is she actually _kissing the snake_?" Naveen asked Tiana, swallowing hard—especially when Louis retched disgustingly behind them.

But then they supposed one _had_ to be especially nice to a snake that one used as a seeing-eye cane, as Mama Odie now did to Juju. It didn't seem to help, though: Crashes and clangs echoed down the ship's body as the frogs hopped after her. "Good to see you again, Ray! How's your grandmama?"

"Oh, she's fine," Ray chuckled. "Got in a little trouble for flashing the neighbors again…"

"Ooh, I like that gal's spunk!" cackled the voodoo priestess, sitting down on a gigantic wicker chair.

"Mama Odie," Tiana began again as Naveen and she hopped onto an arm of the chair, "we don't wanna take up too much of your time, but—"

"Y'all want some candy?"

Naveen didn't see any candy. He saw a moth fly out of Mama Odie's outstretched palm, leaving behind a button, a key, some hair and lint, a few beans…oh, there was the candy. Naveen suppressed an urge to vomit. "Uh…not really…"

"No, thank you," Tiana agreed, more politely.

"Now, that's too bad," said Mama Odie soberly, picking bits of hair off of the small pink lozenge. "It's a special candy. Woulda turned y'all human."

Chaos erupted.

"No, don't eat it—!"

"No! Please—!"

"Don't take it!"

Mama Odie popped the candy into her mouth, and guffawed at the frogs' horrified expressions. "I'm just messing with y'all!"

"Wait a second," said Tiana suddenly, grinning sidelong at Naveen. "How on earth did you know that we wanted to turn back—?"

A light snore—from Mama Odie—interrupted Tiana again.

The two frogs looked at each other.

"Um," said Naveen, peering into her tinted glasses. "Mama Odie?"

"JUJU!"

Naveen fell off the chair, startled.

"Why didn't you tell me my gumbo was burning?" Mama Odie lumbered to her feet and dunked a stick into a bathtubfull of gumbo, stirring vigorously. "Can't believe it—gotta do everything 'round here—"

"Mama Odie," Tiana began again, none too hopefully, "if you—"

"Taste this." Mama Odie dipped her finger in the gumbo and more or less poked Tiana in the mouth.

Tiana tasted, swallowed, reflected.

"Well?"

"Hit it hard with a coupla shots of Tabasco and it's the bee's knees," was Tiana's prompt verdict. Naveen decided he would never cease to be amazed at Tiana's expert culinary skills. "Now, can we—"

"JUJU!"

The snake poured Tabasco into the bathtub. Naveen wondered where Mama Odie bathed, if ever.

He decided he didn't really want to know.

Mama Odie tasted the improved gumbo. "That's got some zang to it!" She literally leapt for joy, although for a split second Naveen was afraid she was going to jump _into_ the gumbo and—what? Go for a swim? Take that bath? She was kind of beginning to scare Naveen. "That's just what it needed. Now, y'all figure out what _you_ need?"

"It's just like you said, Mama Odie," Tiana replied, the faintest tinge of exasperation in her voice. "We need to be human!"

"HA!" Mama Odie yelled, causing Tiana to almost fall into the gumbo. Naveen rescued her, almost falling in himself.

"Y'all ain't got the sense you was born with! Y'all _want_ to be human, but you're _blind_ to what you _need_!" She waggled a finger at Naveen and Tiana, as if daring them to mention her self-pun.

Naveen was frankly confused. Maybe it was a trick question. "What we 'want,' what we 'need'—it all is the same thing, yes? Ow!"

Mama Odie had whacked him on the head with the gumbo stick. "'It's the same thing'? NO! You listen to yo' mama, now!"

"Where is that music coming from…?" whispered Tiana, and Mama Odie began to dance.

Naveen groaned and rolled his eyes. "Oh great. We are in a musical number."

"_Don't matter what you look like,_" sang Mama Odie, "_don't matter what you wear, how many rings you got on your fingers—we don't care._"

_NAH, WE DON'T CARE!_

Naveen looked up for the source of the echo and groaned again. "And there is the choir."

"Ooh, flamingos!" squealed Tiana. "I've never been this close to one before!"

Naveen sighed.

"_Don't matter where you come from—don't even matter what you are._" Mama Odie conjured her magic gourd from midair and changed Juju into several different animals before he reverted to a dizzy snake, listing out, "_a dog, a pig, a cow, a goat—had 'em all in here._"

_WE HAD 'EM ALL IN HERE!_

"_And they all knew what they wanted—what they wanted me to do. I told 'em what they needed. Just like I be telling you—_"

_YOU GOTTA DIG A LITTLE DEEPER! _

"_Find out who you are!_"

_YOU GOTTA DIG A LITTLE DEEPER!_

"_It really ain't that far!_" Mama Odie rummaged through a trunk and brought the two frogs an oyster, which she opened to reveal a huge pearl.

Naveen looked into its luminescence and saw—not his own reflection, but Tiana's as she stood next to him.

Tiana made a very beautiful frog. Naveen suddenly felt the way he had when he taught her how to dance.

"_When you find out who you are, you'll find out what you need._"

The next thing he knew, the big brown eyes he'd been looking at in their reflections had widened, and Tiana turned around and looked at him incredulously herself. He smiled sheepishly and hastily paid more attention to the music.

At first he'd been sort of embarrassed that they were being _sung_ to about their troubles, but…it was a really catchy tune. And Naveen loved to dance. Leaping from the bathtub to the floor, Naveen threw himself into the music without another misgiving.

"_Blue skies and sunshine guaranteed! You gotta dig—_"

_DIG!_

"_You gotta dig…_"

_DIG!_

"_Prince Froggy is a rich little boy,_" sang Mama Odie from behind Naveen. He turned to face her. "_You wanna be rich again?_"

Naveen nodded eagerly.

But Mama Odie frowned at him over the crate between them like a judge at court. "_That ain't gonna make you happy now—did it make you happy _then_?_"

"Well—" Naveen grinned.

"_NO!_" Mama Odie said, answering for him. "_Money ain't got no soul, money ain't got no heart,_" she chided him philosophically, though she was now showering Naveen with gold coins that he grasped at eagerly.

Laughing, Naveen basked in the glittering rain of money—truly, the real power in the world wasn't magic. It was _money_. Look at Naveen before he'd been cut off, compared to now! Before, he'd been…well, Mama Odie had a point. He'd never been what you could call "happy," because he always wanted more of everything. But he'd had fun _getting_ more, and that was all that really mattered, wasn't it? More money, women, wine, dancing, jazz…and now…

Well, now he was a frog.

But, Naveen realized with a jolt, he had some things he didn't have before. For the first time in his life, Naveen had people (well, animals) he could call his friends. Even Tiana was starting to be nice to him, even if sometimes he felt strange and confused just being around her. And anyways, Mama Odie was going to turn them into humans, and here was Naveen getting to dance on a pile of money. He'd have everything he'd had before _and _then some.

Just now, though, Naveen was a _happy_ frog.

He'd come to these conclusions amazingly quickly—in that bothersome way where one's thoughts tend to overlap with each other, as fast as the gold surrounding Naveen—but as the coins flowed down, Naveen went from swimming in money—to drowning in it. He let out a muffled yelp as he disappeared into a sea of hard brightness. Soon, though, Mama Odie's hand plunged into the pile of coins and plucked him out. "_All you need is some self-control—make yourself a brand-new start!_"

_YOU GOTTA DIG A LITTLE DEEPER!_

Mama Odie danced across the room with Naveen in her hands, finally setting him down on an old trunk. "_Don't have far to go_," she assured him, gesturing to Naveen's left.

Naveen looked.

_YOU GOTTA DIG A LITTLE DEEPER!_

He saw Tiana.

He saw Tiana dancing.

He saw Tiana dancing with Ray.

They were holding hands. The joy on Tiana's face as she danced—danced all by herself for the first time—was so pure and boundless that, for one split second, Naveen wanted to shove Ray aside and dance with Tiana himself.

Shocked, Naveen suppressed the violent urge. Despite the look on Tiana's face when the firefly had been talking about his Evangeline, Ray was a great friend.

So was Tiana.

But Naveen was…well, what _was _he?…Jealous. _Faldi faldonza_, he was _jealous_. He'd never been jealous before, but he'd seen jealousy on enough women who'd vied for his attention to recognize the inward as well as outward manifestations.

Where there was jealousy…

Naveen froze.

"_Tell the people Mama told you so!_"

Naveen barely heard the dull _plink_ as the coin he didn't remember holding onto fell from his numb hands. In fact, he didn't hear much of anything—it seemed as though someone had hushed the flamingos, as if everything around his fellow frog had gone blurry. He stared at Tiana like he'd been blind all his life, and she was the first thing he saw now. A voice in the back of his head said this was a ridiculous comparison to make. "But it's true," Naveen mumbled aloud.

And Naveen did really feel blind, or rather like he _had_ been. Maybe he didn't regret all those women, but as he watched Tiana dance, Naveen knew she was going to be the last, and the best, and the longest. Forever, hopefully.

He loved her.

He'd come far enough in the last few days that he wasn't even too surprised to hear himself actually thinking the "l-word" about a woman, even considering that it was Tiana.

Naveen grinned like a goof.

Tiana, Tiana, Tiana…how right her name sounded in his head! Naveen laughed to himself—of course it did! He'd been using it in various tones of contempt, annoyance, amusement, fear, and (his smile got wider) some sort of begrudging affection, all along!

He tore his eyes away from Tiana and looked back at Mama Odie, his eyes wide as he hoped this was what she'd wanted him to figure out.

She grinned back at him, then gestured at the dancing frog Naveen'd been so rapturously watching. "_Can't tell you what you'll find—maybe love'll grant you peace of mind_," she advised him in an undertone. "_But dig a little deeper, and you'll know!_

"_Miss Froggy—Might I have a word?_"

"Thank you," Naveen mouthed as she glided past him (surprisingly agilely, for a 197-year-old woman). He sat down to watch her work her "magic" on Tiana, hardly letting himself _think_ what he hoped the voodoo priestess would tell her.

"_You're the hard one, that's what I heard…_"

Naveen saw Tiana smirk a little, and he knew what she was thinking: If you'd asked either of them, a few days ago, who'd be harder to change, they would have both said Naveen.

Clearly, it had been a very long past few days.

Mama Odie carried Tiana over to the gumbo pot and waved her hand over it. "_Your daddy,_" she sang as Tiana, watching the gumbo, put her hand to her heart, "_was a loving man—family, through and through. You your daddy's daughter! What he had in him, you've got in you!_"

Naveen could breathe again. So maybe his ability to figure these things out was less than a day old, but he _thought_ Mama Odie was trying to say Tiana had love in her, just like her dad had. That maybe Tiana needed love more than she needed her restaurant. Knowing Tiana as well as he did, despite their short time together, Naveen laughed at the thought of what Tiana'd say to _that_ idea!

_YOU GOTTA DIG A LITTLE DEEPER!_

"_For you, it's gonna be tough!_"

_YOU GOTTA DIG A LITTLE DEEPER!_

"_Y'ain't dug near far enough!_"

But she looked so happy, and wasn't emitting the snorting noises Naveen would've expected of her, so maybe she understood, too, whether her interpretation of Mama Odie's words was the same or not. It couldn't be far off. In fact it _had_ to be the same, didn't it? Naveen felt that same reaching out to Tiana that he had felt when he taught her to dance.

At least now he knew what it was. He knew why he felt very warm inside and wanted to turn cartwheels and write operas—although he had learned, in the course of several drunken routs, that he couldn't do either—because of the simple fact of loving Tiana. As Mama Odie carried Tiana out onto the boat's deck, he hopped after them.

"_Dig down deep inside yourself! You'll find out what you need! Blue skies and sunshine, guaranteed!_ Open up the windows—let in the light, chi'ren!"

_BLUE SKIES AND SUNSHINE, BLUE SKIES AND SUNSHINE—_

As they emerged, the flamingos swept aside the weeping willow's curtains of leaves—and they were all ablaze in the light of the new day. The multicolored bottles caught the light, too, and Naveen felt like his heart swelled up inside him, to see Tiana on Mama Odie's hat, bespangled with purple and blue and green and pink and orange from the bottles, as well as with the sunshine and her own beauty.

"Blue skies and sunshine!" sang Tiana, and Naveen had never heard a more musical sound.

"_Guaranteed!_" Mama Odie told her, beaming all over with grins and sunshine. "Well, Miss Froggy, do _you_ understand what you need now, child?"

Naveen stopped breathing again.

"Yes! I do, Mama Odie!" Tiana said happily, doing a sort of half-twirl. "I need to dig a little deeper—and work even _harder_ to get my restaurant!"

Naveen let out his breath in an involuntary groan—and was shocked, but relieved, to see that he wasn't the only one. Everyone else seemed to have cottoned on to what Tiana _really _needed.

Even Naveen.

Okay, so maybe Ray hadn't. "All right, y'all!" he cried into the sudden, awkward silence. "One more time! _It don't matter what you like, it don't—nobody gonna sing with Raaaaaaaaaaay…_okay…"

_**Next: PEACE OF MIND, in which Naveen, despite Mama Odie's lyrics, has anything BUT that.**_


	18. Peace of Mind

**I have a tumblr now. Username "morterouge." I rant about Princess and the Frog/ fanfiction on it, such as my adventure on the DVD when I was home sick. Go see!**

**-M.R.**

**XVIII. PEACE OF MIND**

CLEARLY, MAMA ODIE WAS AS DISAPPOINTED as the rest of them. "Well, she sighed, "if y'all are set on being human, there's only one way."

It was a much more somber procession that trooped back inside. Much as Naveen, swaying on Mama Odie's shoulder (Tiana had fallen off of the voodoo priestess's turban and was now perched opposite Naveen) wanted to pay attention to how to become human again, he couldn't think of a single way to make Tiana see what it was that she needed (for the first time in Naveen's life, he wasn't being conceited in saying that he was the answer!), and that wasn't for lack of trying. Actually, his head ached with concentration—and with lack of sleep.

When they reached the ship's hull again, Mama Odie made straight for the gumbo tub. Conjuring her magic gourd from nowhere once more, she stirred the gumbo with it—at the peril of the frogs on her shoulders—chanting:

_Gumbo, gumbo, in the pot, we need a princess—whatcha got?_

To Naveen's surprise, the gumbo swirled even faster, the slower Mama Odie stirred, and suddenly a picture materialized: a blond girl snoring in a pink bed. Naveen was just trying to remember why _she_ looked so familiar (since it wasn't the best time to bring up one of Naveen's former conquests when he was trying to woo Tiana in earnest) when Tiana said, "_Lotte_? But she's not a princess—"

"Hush up and look at the gumbo," snapped Mama Odie, obviously still upset with Tiana.

Naveen was already hushed up and looking at the gumbo, and he saw Mr. La Bouff come in, dressed—well, as only an _American _would assume kings dressed—and wake his daughter with the gift of a tiara on a cushion.

"That's _right_," breathed Tiana. "Big Daddy's king of the Mardi Gras parade. So that makes Lotte…a princess!"

"…does that _count_?" Naveen asked dubiously.

Mama Odie turned a serious face on him, too, and he decided her bad mood didn't extend to only Tiana. "Yes it does—but only till midnight, when Mardi Gras is over."

"What day is—?" Naveen didn't need to finish his question. There could be only one reason Mr. La Bouff was trusting his daughter alone with a sparkly, princessy festival tiara this morning. "_Faldi faldonza_!" They didn't have much time.

"Hopalongs, you only got 'til then to get that princess to kiss you! Once she does—boom! You'll both turn human!"

"Midnight," Naveen repeated dully.

"That doesn't give us much time at all!" cried Tiana, echoing Naveen's thoughts.

"How are we going to get there in time?" Naveen asked Tiana, as Louis began pestering Mama Odie for _his_ wish. "We were three days coming out here, and now—"

"Oh, _I_ don't know!" cried Tiana, wringing her webbed hands. "_Why_ Louis has to do this _now_, when we're strapped for time—"

"Jabber Jaws, you dig a little deeper, you'll find everything you need," Mama Odie said in one breath. It seemed she had the hearing of a bat. "Now come on, come on, come on, there's a lotta river between here and New Orleans. Y'all best get to swimming—"

"Wait, I got a better idea!" exclaimed Louis.

.:..:..:.

"WHY'RE YOU SMILING LIKE THAT, Naveen?"

Naveen stared at Tiana blankly for a minute (more) before he remembered how to reply. "Oh, nothing."

Thanks to Mama Odie's magic, they were able to sneak aboard a steamboat en route to New Orleans. But Naveen regretted acceding to Louis's idea as soon as they saw the shadows (presumably attached to men, not wandering around on their own and trying to kidnap Naveen or something) approaching them on the boat.

"They got guns!" shrieked Louis, trying unsuccessfully to hide.

The men came around the corner, materialized into jazz players costumed as a lion, a toucan and an armadillo, and mistook Louis as one of their own. Obviously delirious with excitement, Louis dashed after his "band."

Naveen sighed with relief—and felt Tiana sigh too. He looked down and realized they were clutching each other close, their bodies still rigid with fear. Once more, they separated with nervous laughs and exaggerated care.

It made Naveen want to punch something.

"We can't miss this!" exclaimed Ray, swooping in between them and away. "Little Louis is finally gonna finally play with the big boys!"

"'Little'?" Naveen whispered to Tiana. Though it had happened days ago, Tiana caught on and laughed at their silly joke. When their laughter died out and Tiana walked away, Naveen wanted to punch something again.

"Naveen?"

"Huh?" said Naveen intelligently.

"You coming?" she asked expectantly, laughing a little at his dazedness.

"Oh!" said Naveen. "I'll catch up with you later."

Naveen's hopes rose when, at least, Tiana's face fell a little in disappointment. "Oh. Okay. See you later, then."

When she had scampered off after Louis and Ray, Naveen leaned against the lowest rail of the railing.

What to do? He had to make Tiana see that she should love him! But how?

Maybe if she knew _Naveen_ loved _her_—

But what if she rejected him?

For a moment, Naveen let himself pretend _Tiana_ loved _him_. If that was the case—not that it was—she'd probably not want to tell him the truth, either. Probably she had even more reason not to. Naveen, after all, was—_was_, in the past tense, being the operative word, although Tiana didn't know that, at least not yet—a _connoisseur_ of women; he'd never had much trouble with them. But he'd only ever dealt with women physically. Not emotionally. Tiana knew that, and would probably assume he wasn't capable of actually loving someone.

Naveen thought that up until very recently, that was just about right.

But that was then, and this was now. Still, Tiana might be afraid of rejection. He had, after all, Naveen reflected guiltily, referred to her mostly as "waitress" for quite some time. Among other things he had said and done.

Of course, this idea of Tiana loving him wasn't real. A beautiful, smart, brave, hard-working, kind—well, a girl like Tiana couldn't ever fall in love with playboy Naveen.

But since he couldn't read minds, Naveen knew he had to act as though the chances she might weren't so small, and tell her exactly how _he_ felt about her.

Right. That was settled. Naveen levered himself off of the rail and paced a little. The problem now was to figure out how to tell her.

The trouble with pacing, as a frog, was that Naveen's feet got so close together that he tripped over them if he didn't watch them. Although Naveen began to pay attention to where his feet were going, he stopped so suddenly that he almost tripped anyways.

At his feet were a broken string of Mardi Gras beads and the wire from a champagne cork. The circle of wire tugged at Naveen's brain and his thoughts, as well as his feet, stopped dead. He picked up the bits of rubbish and stared at them until his brain started working again and he knew what to do.

.:..:..:.

NAVEEN'S FINGERS WERE MUCH BIGGER than Tiana's, but he fashioned the ring around his smallest finger and hoped that would work. The pearly bead he used was a bit big, but he guessed that was really the least of his worries just now.

At the prow of the ship he found a bit of blue velvet torn from a costume; as the sun set Naveen (braving row upon row of feet) was lucky to discover a whole, if empty, walnut shell underneath a table. Tenderly he folded the velvet into the shell, placed the ring upon the velvet, and closed the lid.

And panicked.

From Naveen's perch on the texas, he could see all the stars. But he directed his worries to the one he knew by name.

"Oh, Evangeline," Naveen began, but stopped short. As far as he'd come, he felt ridiculous talking to a big ball of gas millions of miles away. But talking to _himself_ would be an even surer sign of madness. At least no one was around. "Why can't I just look Tiana in the eye and say—" For practice, Naveen got down on one knee and opened the box, as if he were already proposing to Tiana—"'I will do whatever it takes to make all your dreams come true, because…because I love you." Despite his embarrassment, he sighed happily. It was wonderful to say it aloud.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa, Cap—you makin' goo-goo eyes at my girl?"

So much for being alone.

Naveen barely had time to exclaim "Ray?" before the tiny firefly launched himself at Naveen's hand and began pummeling it. Granted, he probably hadn't been aiming at Naveen's hand, but Naveen was able to stave off his insect attacker with a single finger.

"That's it! Put 'em up—!"

"No, no, no, Ray—"

"I'm gonna make some shoes outta you—!"

"Ray—_what?_—No, no, Ray, I am not in love with Evangeline! I am in love," he sighed again to declare it outside of his own head, "with _Tiana_."

Ray stopped gnawing on Naveen's hand. "OOH! I knew it I knew it I knew it! C'mere, you!" he guffawed, kissing (and hugging) Naveen's cheeks rapturously.

"And I can no longer marry Miss Charlotte La Bouff," Naveen realized aloud, disregarding the affectionate onslaught. This, then, was what friends were for—you figured things out a lot more quickly when you thought out loud. And not to stars.

"You gonna be so happy together—" squealed Ray.

"I will find another way to get Tiana her restaurant," Naveen decided.

"You gonna have the cutest little tadpoles—"

"I will get a job," Naveen continued, thinking aloud. "Maybe two. Maybe _three_." Where three days ago the word "job" was enough to make Naveen shudder, now he wanted to scream "I'M GETTING A JOB!" from the rooftops almost as much as he wanted to scream "I LOVE TIANA!" Besides, Tiana had called him "no-account" and "lazy"—how he'd prove her wrong! And she might love him for it! Two jobs, three, a _hundred_, if it meant Naveen could give Tiana her restaurant and she could love him! If—

"I can't wait to tell _chèrie_!" Ray burst, zooming off.

Naveen lunged and caught him by the wings, nearly falling off of the texas. "No, no, no, Ray! _I _must tell her. Alone." He waggled his eyebrows.

"Riiiiight," Ray agreed, chuckling. "You rascal!"

"Hey, it is what I am known for," shrugged Naveen, laughing as well. "I will need some fruit, and a sharp edge—

.:..:..:.

"—AND THESE TEACUPS, AND THAT DESSERT dish, and a candlestick, and that desk bell, and possibly also a bottle of champagne and one of those roses—"

"We ain' gonna be able to do this all by ourselves, Cap," chuckled Ray, and flew out of the kitchen window to give a short, sharp whistle.

Three fireflies were delegated to tell Louis to Distract Tiana At All Costs as well as to do so themselves when Louis had to be onstage, while the rest helped lift Naveen's makeshift furniture out of the kitchen.

"Put it all on the pilot house roof," Naveen directed them. "Please."

Then he and Ray went into the kitchen to get food.

"_Faldi faldonza_, Ray," Naveen sighed. "I'm in trouble, aren't I?"

"You got that right, Cap!" Ray laughed, trying to lift a particularly large strawberry. "You in _love_."

Naveen took the strawberry from Ray. "Sometimes when I think about being in love with Tiana, it makes me feel like writing operas and doing cartwheels. But just now—I think I am nervous. I have never been nervous before. It is horrible!"

"Bein' nervous?"

"Being in love!" Naveen clarified.

"But…it's the good kind of horrible…?" Ray prompted, handing him a large napkin.

Naveen was silent for awhile, as he tossed strawberries onto the napkin. "I've seduced dozens of women, Ray—beautiful women from everywhere in the world. But Tiana—she—" he squeezed a small, soft strawberry too tight and was suddenly covered in sticky red juice.

It wasn't as though Naveen kept careful record. But Tiana probably wasn't the most witty or red-lipped or curvy woman Naveen had ever pursued. She definitely wasn't the richest, or the most trusting, or the best dancer (although she was very graceful for someone who had never danced before yesterday). Probably, despite her striking features, Tiana wasn't the most beautiful girl Naveen had ever seen, but—

It was hard to explain, even to himself. Naveen thought that there must be something more than personality—more, even, than beauty—that made Naveen even happier to be arguing with Tiana than exchanging smiles (and liaisons) with the most beautiful woman in the world. He finally found a way to phrase it. "But I want Tiana's love more than I have wanted anything—" _or anyone_, the thought grimly "—else in my life."

"Yep, that's love, all right!" Ray said from above the second napkin he'd just dropped on Naveen's drenched head.

"So even though I have had so much experience, I feel as though I'm starting all over again. I have no idea what to say to Tiana!" Naveen wiped the strawberry juice off of his mucus. "Especially as…" he sighed. Apparently even this confiding in friends had its low moments. "I am not worthy of her."

"Oh, Cap, you picked the right bug to talk to, yeah. I know how you feel. You see, old Ray just a 20-watt bulb in a 100-watt world, most of the time. But Evangeline, she so bright, and then it make me wanna shine even brighter. And I do." Ray had that soft look on his face again. It was the same look Tiana had had—and, Naveen realized with an ironic smile, it was probably the same look he'd had on his face all day, too. "She make me a better fly."

"Yes! Yes, yes, that is exactly it!" Naveen exclaimed. "_I _want to be a better fly! Frog. Man. Uh…"

Ray chuckled again. "Well, Cap, you best make up yo' mind soon, 'cause you got a proposal to make."

"_Faldi faldonza_," said Naveen.

_**Next: THE HARD ONE, in which Naveen promises Tiana everything she ever…wanted. (Tiana, you make me sad. Come, Patsy!)**_


	19. The Hard One

**XIX. THE HARD ONE**

"PSSSST! TIANA! _TIANA!_"

"Naveen?" Tiana turned around, her face lighting up with a huge smile. All of Naveen's nervousness melted away and a big grin broke over his own face. It was wonderful to know he could have even that small but positive effect on her.

"I have something to show you," he said. "But first you must close your eyes."

Tiana looked dubious. Naveen couldn't blame her. He wouldn't trust an infamous playboy who told Naveen to close his eyes, either. But Tiana did not know yet that he was not going to be a playboy anymore. Naveen himself was a little alarmed when he thought about THAT. But if it meant Tiana would love him, Naveen thought it was a fair trade.

"It's a surprise," he explained.

With a sigh, but not a bad sort of sigh, Tiana closed her eyes. Naveen waved his fingers in front of her eyelids just to make sure—and her eyelids fluttered. "_Tiana_!"

"Sorry, sorry!" she giggled, clamping her eyes shut tight. "Happy now?"

Naveen waved his hand in her face again. "Yes. Keep your eyes closed." Chewing on his lip in distracted anticipation, Naveen took both of Tiana's hands (enjoying the tingly pleasant feeling he felt at having an excuse to do this) and led her, off deck, over the texas—and eyed the pilot house a little doubtfully. "Tiana?"

"Mm?"

"I did not plan this as well as I had hoped," he confessed. "Do you want to open your eyes now, or do you want me to carry you the rest of the way?"

"Um—"

"Never mind," Naveen interrupted quickly. "That was a silly question. Ha ha. You can open your eyes now."

"Okay," Tiana said, her tone just as uncertain as her expression as she blinked in the light from the pilot house windows.

"Now we will climb to the roof," Naveen explained, hopping ahead so Tiana couldn't see the embarrassment on his face.

"Where you taking me anyways?" Tiana asked sweetly, which made him feel a little less nervous. It didn't seem to be sarcastic sweetness, or anything, but then sometimes Naveen couldn't tell with Tiana. He glanced back at her, but she had a gentle smile on her face and he reached for her hand.

"Oh, I just wanted to show you a little something, to—celebrate our last night together as frogs," he prevaricated. That is, until Tiana came over the edge of the roof and saw the frog-sized dinner table he'd laid out for her.

"Oh!" cried Tiana, putting both hands to her heart. "All my years, no one's ever done anything like this for me!" She looked at Naveen and her smile faded a little. Then she started laughing.

"Uh," said Naveen intelligently. "It is too much, is it not?" He cleared his throat at the moth who had helped him find Tiana on the boat in the first place, and who was now perched trustingly on his throat as a sort of tie. "Thank you, Beau."

"_I_ thought it was a nice touch," grumbled Beau as he left the two frogs alone, but Beau was in on the secret and knew Naveen was trying to impress someone _else_, after all.

Tiana giggled, but Naveen was blushing again. "Pretend you did not see that!" he told her. "Please. Please, sit down." He remembered in the nick of time to pull out Tiana's chair—er, teacup—for her before she sat down.

"What's this?" Tiana asked.

Naveen only smiled. "Ta-da!" Lifting the lid off of the dismantled bell, he placed the "platter" of grapes, strawberries, and assorted other small fruits in front of Tiana, who gasped.

"You minced!"

"I did!" he agreed, beaming all over as Tiana laughed giddily. "You have had quite an influence on me," Naveen admitted to her as he finally seated himself. "Which is amazing, because I have dated _thousands_ of women, and—"

Tiana didn't look in the least bit impressed.

Naveen backtracked rapidly.

"No—like two, three hund—just—other women!"

That wasn't better.

"And—anyway, listen," Naveen pleaded as he fumbled for the walnut, which was stowed under the table…_somewhere_…"You could not be more different. You know?"

"I know," said Tiana drily. Naveen winced.

"You are practically—" he thought of the last few days "—one of the guys! No, no, no! You are NOT a guy!"

Tiana didn't look reassured in the least.

As for Naveen, he now thought he understood the meaning of "crash and burn." He sighed. "Let me begin again," he _begged_ Tiana, leaning on the table—and tipping it over. Smooshy minced fruits rained down on him.

Tiana gasped. "Are you all right, Naveen?"

Naveen couldn't tell whether she was asking "Are you hurt?" or "Are you CRAZY?", so he didn't answer her directly. "I'm not myself tonight," he mumbled.

His eyes widened as he saw the walnut shell _right next to Tiana's foot_. He had to grab it again before she saw it! "TIANA!" he began again as he lunged for it—then looked up at her from the floor next to her feet. "Sorry. That was loud," he stated, in case she hadn't noticed.

But she was _smiling_.

Gingerly, as he was sure bruises were beginning all over him, he got up and leaned precariously on the table (so it wouldn't tip over again). "This," he informed Tiana, "is a disaster."

Tiana's smile turned into giggles. "No," she corrected him, plucking a strawberry leaf from his head. "It's _cute_."

And that was how Naveen _knew_ he loved her.

Like he hadn't known before. He _had_. But here was Naveen making a fool of himself, and she still thought it was _cute_. It made him lift up his strawberry-stained head and grin back at Tiana.

Their mutual smile turned into a sort of staring contest. Naveen wanted to kiss Tiana _right now_, but he needed to stay on track. "Tiana—I…" He reached for the walnut shell again, and knelt in front of Tiana, squeezing his eyes closed for a second to gather up his bravery.

Even Tiana's voice sounded far away. "Naveen! There it is!"

"W—what?" Naveen stammered, completely thrown off-balance. He opened his eyes and sighed. Tiana was sitting on the edge of the roof, her back to him.

But she was staring at a building like it was her baby (Naveen's stomach twisted at _that_ comparison) and something clicked in Naveen's head. "Your restaurant?" he guessed, sitting down next to her.

Tiana nodded, but she didn't look at him, and Naveen's stomach lurched again. "Can't you just _picture_ it?" she breathed. "All lit up like the Fourth of July?"

And Naveen found that he _could_. Loving Tiana like he did, he wanted to see the world through her eyes when the situation called for it, and it wasn't so bad after all. "Yes! Jazz pouring out of every window!"

This time Tiana _did_ turn to smile at him. "You _would_," she chided him teasingly. "It should be elegant, though."

Naveen looked at her in mock dismay. "But you gotta keep it loose, gotta let it swing!" His outflung arms settled down…one of them around Tiana's shoulders…and she didn't shrug it off.

"You know a good ukulele player?" she giggled.

Naveen beamed at her. "Oh, really? You'd let me perform?" He cocked an eyebrow at her. "I thought you did not like jazz! I thought it was not _interesting _enough for you!"

Tiana raised an eyebrow right back. "Maybe you changed my mind. Of _course_ I'd let you perform! You're one of my favorite people, Naveen…"

Forget proposing to Tiana right now. It'd be easier after he'd kissed her. If he leaned in just a little bit…

"…almost as important to me as Lotte."

Naveen stared at Tiana. Had she _really_ just said "You're almost as important to me as Lotte?" Had she _really_ just said that? She _had_, hadn't she?

"Hadn't I what?" Tiana repeated.

Naveen blinked. "What?"

"What?" Tiana pressed.

"What what?" they said at the same time, and burst out laughing again.

"You owe me another soda," Tiana said finally, gasping for breath.

Naveen laughed again. "As long as we can have it at your restaurant!"

"If I even let you in," Tiana warned him, smacking him playfully on the arm.

Naveen widened his eyes exaggeratingly. "But you _must_!" he reminded her. "You said you would let me perform there!"

"Mm, about that," Tiana said vaguely, clearly enjoying his confusion. "I'll talk to the owner." She paused. "Owner says yes!"

"_Achidanza_!" Naveen whooped.

They went off into gales of laughter again.

"Oh, my," Tiana sighed at last, leaning back into Naveen's shoulder. "Folks are going to be coming together from all walks of life—just to get a taste of our food…"

Naveen was so caught up in the way Tiana's eyes sparkled, and her entire body was animated, and she was less serious that usual when she was talking about her restaurant—that he almost missed the last words she'd said. "_Our_ food?" he breathed, hardly daring to hope.

But he _did_ hope, because he fumbled for the walnut shell with his other hand. One flick of his wrist opened the makeshift case and he reached for the ring—

"Huh?" said Tiana, her sparkling eyes losing a little of their dazzling cast. "Oh, no. My daddy. We always wanted to open this restaurant, but he died before he could see it happen."

_Urgh._

But "I am sorry," Naveen said sincerely. "But—but did he have a happy life, at least? I thought Mama Odie said he was a loving father…" Naveen's voice failed him. "I wish I was as lucky as you are," he told her simply.

Tiana stared at him. "Naveen—you're the prince here! What're you calling little old _me _'lucky' for?"

"My father…" Naveen had to clear his throat. "My father has never really paid very much attention to me. Now, I am sure, he pretends I do not exist."

Tiana took Naveen's hand. "I never thought of myself as lucky that way, but I guess I am, then. Thank you, Naveen. And I'm sorry about _your _daddy, too. I can't even begin to imagine my parents ignoring me." She smiled feebly, trying to make him smile too. "I wish you could've met my daddy, then. He would've liked you a lot, I think."

Now Naveen _did _smile a little. "Really? _Me_?"

"Yeah. He _was_ such a loving man. My mama says he couldn't see the bad in _anyone_." Tiana smiled. "That wasn't an insult, by the way. You know, _Your Highness_, you're not as spoiled as you seem!"

Naveen wanted to say that, yes, he was, or _had_ been, but he was changed now and, _faldi faldonza_, he wanted to propose to Tiana already, but she continued speaking.

"'A loving man, family through and through…'" Tiana sang softly and looked back up at Naveen, squeezing the hand she'd held for a while now without seeming to want to let go. "But tomorrow, with your help, our dream is finally coming true."

"…wait," Naveen said. "Tomorrow?"

"If I don't deliver that money first thing tomorrow, I lose this place forever," Tiana explained earnestly.

The sky was clear, the river was calm. So why did Naveen hear a thundering in his ears like a storm was coming? He surely _felt_ like now was the right time for one.

_Tomorrow._

There was no time for three jobs or even a hundred. No time for anything—but a proposal.

Not to Tiana. And not of a romantic kind, although it would be a proposal of marriage.

From the way Tiana kept talking, she expected Naveen to still go and marry Charlotte La Bouff and give her, Tiana, the money. And it really was all he could do. He guessed Tiana'd never accepted a loan from Charlotte before because of her damn pride—that same stubbornness that Naveen had, and which had made them butt heads almost the whole time they were together. But she couldn't refuse money from _both_ of the people she cared about, could she? In fact she seemed to be expecting it.

Even if one of them was only "almost as important" to her as Lotte.

But Naveen's heart was rebelling. _No! What am I doing! I should be proposing to Tiana right now, not Miss La Bouff!_

His inner storm found its way out of his mouth. "Tiana—I love—" he began.

Tiana looked up, her eyes wide. "Yes?" she prompted eagerly.

Naveen also knew without having to think twice that once he married Miss La Bouff, he could hardly ever even really talk to Tiana again. He'd want too desperately to take her in his arms and—even if that was right up his alley, or had been, or whatever, Tiana would never betray her best friend. Nor would she forgive Naveen for doing so.

Naveen sighed.

He closed the ring box.

"—the way you light up when you talk about your dream," he finished lamely.

Tiana beamed, like that was all she'd expected him to say. Probably that was the case.

"A dream," Naveen forced the words out of his mouth, "that is so beautiful, I—I—"

_I cannot make you give it up for my sake._

Naveen took Tiana's hand in both of his. This time the words came out of his mouth sincerely and a little more easily—although no less painfully. "I promise it will do whatever it takes to make it come true," he told her.

Just then the steamboat whistled and the captain called from right underneath them, "Port of New Orleans! All ashore!"

"I'll, uh," Naveen mumbled, patting Tiana's hand. He was hardly aware of what he was saying. "I'll go round up the boys." He needed to get away from Tiana, NOW. Get used to it.

Naveen supposed he ought to feel happy. Tiana was going to be happy, and that was all that mattered.

He felt like hell.

Picking up the walnut shell, Naveen hoofed it out of there, down the side of the pilot house,—and fell, only to be caught in midair.

For a split second, he thought (out of some sort of subconscious desperation) that it must be Louis, it _had_ to be Louis, come to offer premature—or rather, unnecessary—congratulations. But then he saw the wicked, shadowy smile projected onto the pilot house's walls and cried out "Ti—" only to be muffled as he was swept away into the night.

_**Next: SHADOW MAN, in which Naveen isn't SO changed that he realizes what's been going on in New Orleans all this time.**_


	20. Shadow Man

**LATE JULY: Sorry it's been so long since I updated! Graduating from high school was way more time consuming than I expected. Oh well. I'm back now, and it also took so long because besides graduation…guess where I went for half the summer? Well, you see, in the Southland there's a city way down on the river…and I figured it'd be absolutely criminal if I didn't so much as touch **_**The Green You Need**_** now that I'm back and no longer having the time of my life (not to mention my having not updated for ages, obviously). Besides, the wi-fi at my hotel was practically nonexistent.**

**LATE AUGUST: I swear there's something doesn't want me to finish this damn story. (But don't worry! I don't want to jinx it, but—okay, let's just leave it at that. I DON'T want to jinx things.) For example, the paragraph you are reading now is being typed, quite angrily, for the second time, as my computer decided to shut itself down a few minutes ago, literally as I was about to save what I'd typed thus far. Argh. But that's not all. Since the end of July and my return from New Orleans, I've been assailed by the sudden responsibilities that come with passing from childhood to adulthood (August 28! COUGH) and so I've been accumulating things like IDs and hairdryers and college textbooks and I don't know what all. I would like to know, by the way, why on earth I complained about the sporadic internet at the Hotel Provincial? I finished this chapter the day after **_**my wireless crashed**_**. In the words of a Tumblr addict (suffering severe withdrawal, I might add): WHAT IS THIS? I CAN'T EVEN—**

**-M.R.**

**XX. SHADOW MAN**

NAVEEN STRUGGLED AGAINST HIS CAPTOR for so long that it took until they were flying over the French Quarter for him to realize he was, in fact, suspended in midair. He cast wildly about for any sign of the hands that so forcibly clutched him and, chilled, remembered that the last time he'd been dragged away from his friends, the creature had somehow pulled him by his shadow.

Naveen looked down at the buildings flickering below him and had brief glimpses of an equally flickering shadow, fanged and clawed, with snarly locks of hair snaking out from its skull. He also saw that there seemed to be an entire small flock of ghostly shadows flying around them, ostensibly to guard against his escape.

His escape. Naveen snapped out of his horror-induced stupor and began to wriggle again, albeit in vain.

It never occurred to Naveen to wonder what the creatures' dark purpose with him was, nor where they were taking him. He knew instinctively, as anyone might, that they were purely evil and therefore not to be bribed or begged, but escaped entirely. So Naveen didn't stop writhing, but he thought hard while doing so.

Mama Odie had banished the shadows with fire, but Naveen barely had to touch upon that idea to know he had no fire, nor way of making any around him. Sunlight was no good either, because night had only fallen a few hours ago, and anyways weren't shadows just more obvious in the sunlight?

If he could somehow maneuver to be dropped in total darkness…

"Help!" he shouted on a spur-of-the-moment inspiration—one he couldn't believe hadn't occurred to him before, as the shadow veered sharply along Bourbon Street. "HELP! HE—"

He'd known that with a substantially smaller voicebox it was next to no good, but Naveen was rewarded for his efforts when the shadow carrying him shifted its hands so that one or two of its claws obscured his mouth. Though of course Naveen couldn't see the obstruction actually against his mouth, he could taste it—thick as smoke, and as choking. Naveen, coughing, realized that for once his charming grin had a practical application, and bit down hard on the foul-tasting finger.

An unearthly shriek shattered the night—it was so much louder than Naveen's earlier cries that his eyes darted around, hoping someone'd heard, waiting for a window to light up—but the shadow, in retaliation, enclosed Naveen's entire head in a vicelike grip. Naveen figured, belatedly, that Bourbon Street was far too noisy to call for help on, anyways.

Now not only Naveen's lips, closed tightly as possible against the choking taste, were obscured—his nostrils were filled with the thick, suffocating substance, and Naveen could see next to nothing. Though of course the creature's claws had appeared transparent before, with Naveen's eyes covered everything but specks of light—lampposts, windows of bars and dance halls—was blackness.

The claws over Naveen's face made it difficult to breathe, and he hated to inhale the smell off of them, but despite his dizziness Naveen kicked as hard as he could with his free legs.

When the shadow carrying Naveen took a sudden dive downward, Naveen took a chance as air that really _did_ smell smoky whistled past him and inflated his throat, breaking the shadow's loosened grip on him—only to be caught again by the ankle as the shadows flew out of what Naveen could now see, if upside-down, had been a chimney and into a brightly lit room.

He had time to register that the gangly man also upside-down before him, to whom the shadows obviously reported, was none other than the Shadow Man, Dr. Facilier, before with a flick of the creature's wrist Naveen flew across the room and into Facilier's outstretched hat. Leering down the narrow felt tunnel at Naveen, Facilier scooped Naveen into his fist.

"Ah! We are back in business, boys!" Facilier grinned, shaking Naveen pointedly at the equally cheerful shadows.

"Get your filthy hands off me!" Naveen ordered Facilier with more defiance than optimism, freeing a hand only to have it grasped by the voodoo man in sick parody of their first handshake. "What have you done with—?" And then he saw him. "Laurence!"

But everything that'd been brimming in the back of Naveen's mind—questions, apologies, fruitless rescue strategies—died on his lips at the look on Laurence's face. It was a sinister grin, something Naveen'd only ever seen on Facilier himself and certainly never anything even similar on Laurence. He realized that his former, frequent worry that the butler was being kept prisoner was nothing sort of ridiculous: Even if _Naveen_ didn't like the look on his face, he'd never seen Laurence happy, let alone this maliciously.

Then Naveen noticed with some degree of panic that the vicious smile was replicated exactly on the voodoo amulet in Laurence's hand. Its empty eyes—dull purple now, instead of the vivid red Naveen remembered—nevertheless suggested a hungry gleam, as though it were a vampire (if voodoo existed, Naveen suddenly thought with a chill, perhaps vampires did too, in which case Facilier might actually be the least of anybody's worries) instead of a hollow wooden masklike amulet.

Laurence chuckled in tones that made Naveen's blood run cold—or maybe that was caused by the prospect of having his own blood squeezed into a voodoo amulet _again_. "Now, hold still, _your Eminence_…"

When the painful process was finally complete, Facilier picked up Naveen, carried him over to a small empty jewelry chest sitting on a dresser on the far side of the room, and threw him into it, slamming the lid shut and locking it.

Dizzy, beginning to feel the effects of blood loss (considering the blood necessary to fill the amulet before had not been such a large percentile of his former, human, blood supply), Naveen struggled to a sitting position and steadied himself, leaning against the sides so that his eye pressed against the keyhole.

It'd never occurred to him before what, exactly, the amulet was for anyways—since the first time he'd seen it, Naveen'd only associated it with the transformation into a frog. But there was no hope that the second bloodletting would make him human again. It had also never occurred to Naveen that Laurence hated him, let alone would participate willingly in a plan to hurt him. So it was with a lot of shock that Naveen watched Laurence place the amulet around his neck, transform into what looked a lot like Naveen—except for Laurence's blue eyes, and what was undeniably Laurence's voice—and dress in the prince's finest (and most uncomfortable) clothes.

_What's he doing _that _for_, Naveen wondered miserably. _What if he has a special occasion to go to later on? He's the one who always has to be practical, he should know better than I do not to put on all of that velvet and lace stuff—especially because it's the most painful thing I've ever worn._

"What about Naveen?" Laurence said, turning to face Facilier.

Try as he might, Naveen couldn't see Facilier to read his face before he replied: "I'd think even you weren't fool enough to ask a simple question like _that_, Larry. _Just like last time_—"

Laurence flinched.

"—just like last time, he'll need to be kept alive. For now. We'll need his blood at least once more before I can get rid of Eli La Bouff and claim his fortune."

_Hah. How on earth is he going to get away with THAT? He may be able to kill Mr. La Bouff before anyone can do anything about it_—Naveen felt a sudden surge of worry for the well-being of the kind man, whose warnings about voodoo Naveen should've listened to in the first place—_but I do not think Charlotte La Bouff, foolish as she is, would give away her father's money to just anyone, let alone Dr. Facilier. _Was the shadow man insane, or was there something Naveen, thinking as hard as he could in his current state, didn't know?

"But we'll have to bring him along, so that he doesn't escape again. Of course, I'll blame you again if he does. Don't worry: I've enchanted the box so that you and I are the only people who can see it. Now let's get going to your little Mardi Gras wedding, before your blonde bride brat starts screeching again."

Without further ado the jewelry case was swept into Laurence's arms and borne out the door. Naveen, tossed about in the small space, felt himself fall onto a floor and heard a car engine start, but he thought he understood. The reason Laurence was pretending to be Naveen—besides covering up the real Naveen's transformation and disappearance—was so that he could marry Charlotte La Bouff, just like Naveen had planned anyways. Only, since Laurence owed Facilier for transforming him, and the whole thing had actually been Facilier's idea (Naveen hoped), once Laurence had access to Mr. La Bouff's fortune, he and Facilier would split the money—and kill Mr. La Bouff. Probably they would kill Charlotte, too.

This time, locked into a box instead of thrown into a jam jar, Naveen didn't see any way he could escape. And Ray, Louis, and—and Tiana—had no idea what had happened to him, anyways. Louis would be distracted by getting to play with a jazz band, talkative Ray would probably have his hands full trying to keep Naveen's proposal a secret from Tiana; and all Tiana knew was that he was going to marry Miss La Bouff. If she couldn't find Naveen, she'd go in search of her best friend instead, more occupied with dreams of turning human and opening her restaurant than with wondering where Naveen was. And why _would_ she wonder? Naveen was the one in love, not Tiana.

Besides, even if Naveen could escape, there was really nothing he could do to stop the wedding or the men who had planned it. He was a frog, put up against a plot cooked up by a powerful voodoo man, and again: none of his friends were around to help him this time.

Overcome by frustration, hopelessness, and anger—as well as hunger, exhaustion, and loss of blood—Naveen fainted.

_**Next: THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, in which Naveen, once more, gets what he wants (and needs), but loses something he had.**_


	21. The Princess and the Frog

**Your lengthy, amazing reviews yesterday sort of made my birthday complete. So here's another chapter right away! Yay! (Just keep in mind, this took forever to write which MEANS I'm still working on Chapter 22, so that'll take a while.)**

**-M.R.**

**XXI. THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG**

UNDER OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES NAVEEN WOULD have been overjoyed to wake up in the middle of blaring jazz and bright lights.

But—no time for grogginess—as he sprang up and pressed his eye to the keyhole again, Naveen realized things had only gotten worse.

True, all he could see was the back of a red, ermine-trimmed cape (his, technically, worn by Laurence) and part of a wide pink skirt (undeniably Miss La Bouff's), but Naveen could also hear, over the lights and music which clued him in to being in the middle of the Mardi Gras parade, the words: "If any of you objects to the union of these two people, speak now or forever hold your peace."

"ME!" yelled Naveen, all but thrusting his lips out of the keyhole. "ME! I OBJECT!" At least, that was what he'd planned on saying; over the roar of approval from the crowd, he could barely hear himself.

"Do you, Prince Naveen…"

On the whim of a moment, he sent his tongue flying out of the hole; it found the wooden floor and Naveen gained an inch or two. If he could just get closer to Laurence—well, he'd figure out what to do once he got there. Closer…closer…

"…as long as you both shall live?"

"Cap!"

Naveen couldn't see Ray, but he could have sworn that was his voice. Who else would call him "Cap"? "R—"

A crushing weight descended on Naveen's tongue. Howling wordlessly, he reeled back, as Laurence replaced his foot on the ground, waved something away from his face, and stammered, "What? Oh—I do! Yes, I'm for it!"

Despite his bruised tongue, Naveen muttered some extremely uncomplimentary (and garbled) things in the direction of his evil butler.

"Who—what—" Naveen's view was suddenly obscured, but he'd never felt more relieved in his life; it was Ray, after all. "Is that you, Cap?"

"Do you, Charlotte La Bouff…"

"Way!" bellowed Naveen. "Geh 'ee ow dith box!"

"I can't hear you!" Ray bellowed back. "I'm gonna get you out this box!"

"Oh, I do!" cooed Charlotte La Bouff.

Naveen cringed. "Ray, hurry!"

Despite Ray's "big back porch," he wiggled through the keyhole with ease.

"Ray, how did you find me?" asked Naveen, a little weak with relief (and all of his exertions since his faint, earlier), as the bug worked. "Dr. Facilier said only two people in the world could even see this box, and—"

His brow furrowed in concentration, Ray nevertheless had time for a little chuckle. "Cap, I ain't a person."

Ray dismantled the mechanism in no time. Naveen flung the box open and, crouching as low as his frog legs would go, flung himself at Laurence's neck.

"…pronounce you man…and…"

The plan, of course, was to rip the voodoo amulet from around Laurence's neck—and expose him for the fraud he was in front of everybody. Instead, Laurence's limp shock and Naveen's strength and momentum combined to send them both tumbling off of the float on which the wedding had been so far conducted. It was shaped, Naveen noticed, like a giant wedding cake.

Naveen would have thought that even a pink-loving rich girl would've had better taste.

No matter. His plan hadn't worked. The fall hadn't even crushed the amulet. But the wedding was still brought to a screeching halt.

"Goodness gracious! Are you all right!" called Miss La Bouff.

"I just need a moment to compose myself!" Laurence yelled back, dashing with Naveen in his fist into the nearest building and slamming the door.

"Laurence!" Naveen was finally able to ask, his voice echoing off of the cathedral's walls, "why are you doing this?"

Laurence glared down at his former master with a look of hatred so intense, Naveen hoped it'd never appear on his (own) face again. "As payback," he spat, "for all those years of…_humiliation_."

Before Naveen could respond—and really, what could he have said to _that_?—Facilier appeared from nowhere and barked, "Get your royal rump back on that wedding cake and finish this deal!"

Naveen saw Ray slip under the corner of the church door and knew what to do. While Laurence was distracted, Naveen took a big gulp of breath and swelled his throat, loosening Laurence's hold. He took a firmer grip, this time, on the amulet as he simultaneously clasped it and propelled his feet off of Laurence's chest.

"What's he doing? Stop him!" directed Facilier.

This time, the cord broke and Naveen flung the charm towards Ray, who caught it. Naveen made as if to follow after, but Laurence—now his old (literally), gray, and paunchy self again—caught and squeezed Naveen until he felt like his eyes would pop out and roll across the stone floor. He could only watch, worried, as Ray fell like a stone under its weight, but popped back up again and dragged the charm stubbornly towards and under the heavy wooden door.

"Let go of that!" Laurence cried, belatedly realizing what Naveen had done and making a rush for the doors.

"Stay out of sight," snapped Facilier, shoving Laurence—and Naveen—back up the church's aisle. The shadow man flung the doors open, gave a short, sharp whistle, and was gone, slamming the door behind him again. Silence ensued.

.:..:..:.

"I am sorry."

Laurence stared at Naveen like he couldn't believe his ears. Naveen almost couldn't believe his own mouth, but there was no way to un-say it; he pushed onwards.

"It was very selfish of me. The way I treated you, I mean," he hurried to explain, not meeting his onetime butler's eyes. "I wanted—I guess everybody just…wants to have a fun life, and you were always trying to get in the way and stop me—but I should not have treated you like you were not there, or like a clothes rack to put my luggage on. I mean—luggage does not go on a clothes rack—" he glanced at Laurence, who was glaring at Naveen worse than he had earlier.

"It would have been one thing," hissed Laurence, "if you had been abusive. But you ignored me too much even for that; it was another matter entirely. YOU cannot understand. You've always had to be the center of attention everywhere you went—everywhere I had to FOLLOW you! selfish, vain fool! You cannot IMAGINE what it is to be ignored, and to be made a fool of in the intervening time."

"No," Naveen agreed simply. "I cannot."

The two men (well, one man and one enchanted frog) regarded each other mutely. Their faces, respectively, were humble and inscrutable. Consequently, Naveen—somewhat shamed by the realization that he'd never spoken this frankly with, nor paid as much attention to, Laurence, before—found it hard to break the silence a second time. How could he say anything, when he couldn't tell from Laurence's expression what effect it would have?

"Look. I may not be able to know what I have put you through, but I am sure you can guess what I have experienced in three days as a frog in the bayou," sighed Naveen. "I do not know how my ignoring you has _changed_ you, either, but what I do know is that I am a very different ma—fro—_man_ than I was when we came here. _Achidanza!_ I've fallen in _love_, after all! And," Naveen continued, suppressing his triumph as Laurence's face twitched in surprise, "I did apologize to you a minute ago. I think that makes the second time in my life I have ever apologized because I wanted to.

"I guess it's very obvious that you don't want to work for me any more—I would not want to work for the old me anymore, either—and I am sure you don't want to be friends with me," Naveen concluded regretfully, choosing his words with caution. "But I hope that—well, that you will stop pretending to be me, and you will not try to kill me, or anything—and that we can be on good terms if not friendly ones."

Naveen tried to extend a webbed hand to Laurence to shake. But the older man's grip didn't loosen.

"I don't believe you," Laurence replied coldly. "Three days could never eradicate a lifetime of dissipation and cruel nonchalance. Besides, Naveen, do you really think it's enough for me to be your ex-butler? Never have to clean up after you again? Once, that would have been enough. But once I finally marry Miss La Bouff in your stead, I'll possess half of her fortune AND have Dr. Facilier's powers at my right hand!"

"_You_ are the fool!" Naveen cried, exasperated. "I would bet you my—my transforming back into a man—that Facilier only serves one man, and that man is _not_ you!"

Doubt visibly flickered across Laurence's face.

But just as Naveen was about to name Facilier a self-serving man, they were distracted by pounding on the door, accompanied by a muffled voice.

"Prince! Prince Naveen! Your shy and retiring bride-to-be is getting—antsy!" On the last word, the doors flew open to frame a furious-looking Charlotte La Bouff.

Clearly Laurence, who'd had his back to the door, had somehow forgotten he no longer looked like Naveen. "Oh!" he gasped, smiling and turning (and hiding Naveen behind his back) to face his bride. "Hello, darling!"

The reaction was instantaneous. Charlotte screamed, Laurence screamed and threw his hands in the air and ran; and Naveen, flung into midair by Laurence's gesture, landed in a small shell-shaped basin of water on a little table by the door.

"Miss la Bouff!" he spluttered. "Please, down here! Allow me to introduce myself: I am the REAL Prince Naveen—"

A second later, Naveen wished he'd stayed in the water font; he was currently splayed out, quite flat, on the wood of the table—lain low once more by a heavy book. "—of Maldonia," he groaned.

Fortunately, Charlotte La Bouff's second reaction was kinder than (he thought with a pang) Tiana's had been. "Did you say 'prince'?" she fluttered, picking him up, plopping down on the church step like a little girl about to hear a story, and placing him gently in front of her. "If you're really Prince Naveen, then how in tarnation did you end up as a frog?"

"It's a long story." Naveen glanced at the cathedral clock; it was a quarter to midnight, and he rushed to explain. "I was cursed by Doctor Facilier so that he could disguise my butler, Laurence, as me—that was that old man who ran out of the church—and marry you, take your fortune, and kill your father." He took her huge eyes as a sign of her absorption—and hopefully, belief—and hurried on: "So I remembered the plot of _The Frog Prince_—"

"Ooh! That's my favorite story!"

"I'm sure it is, Miss la Bouff. Anyways, I convinced Tiana to—"

"Tiana!" Whatever her faults, it was obvious Charlotte cared greatly for her friend. Her eyes got even bigger at the name. "Her mama came over the other day to tell Big Daddy and me that she'd disappeared! We've been looking for her everywhere and—OH!" Naveen feared if Charlotte's eyes got any huger they'd fall out. She looked like something had clicked. "Do you know where she is now?"

"In a minute, Miss La Bouff!" _As if there was even a minute to spare, now_, thought Naveen irritably—it was ten to midnight now. "Tiana kissed me, but it—ah—backfired, to say the least. But since you're _Princess_ of Mardi Gras, if you kiss me before midnight—"

"Great balls of fire!" exclaimed Charlotte. "You'll turn into a prince, won't you? It's like I'm in my favorite fairy tale!"

"YES!" Naveen applauded, flinging himself into a princely, kneeling position. "PLEASE KISS ME NOW!"

He wasn't excited, just desperate. Only five minutes were left.

Charlotte fanned herself with her hand, as Naveen watched Laurence being arrested behind her. "Goodness gracious, this is so much to absorb! Let me see if I got this right: If I kiss you before midnight, you'll turn human again?"

Naveen's knee began to ache. He looked at the clock again—three minutes to midnight—and sighed as Charlotte continued, "And then we're gonna get ourselves married and live happily ever after, the end?"

Naveen sighed again. "Yeah," he agreed, "more or less. But you must give Tiana all the money she requires for her restaurant—"

"She's always refused it before—"

"Well, force her! Because Tiana…" he hesitated. Charlotte had a right to know—"She is my Evangeline."

—even if she didn't understand.

Which she didn't. "Anything you want, sugar!" Applying a new coat of lipstick, Charlotte beamed down at Naveen. "Pucker up, buttercup!"

Naveen tried his best. Really, he did. But it wasn't much of a pucker. Especially when he heard someone cry out, "Wait!"

"Tiana?" he exclaimed, twisting away from Charlotte, and "Tiana?" echoed the latter. _Faldi faldonza_,he'd forgotten to tell Charlotte that Tiana was a frog now, too.

And it really was Tiana, hopping up to Naveen. "Don't do this," she pleaded.

Naveen looked at Tiana like she was crazy. Which was not a happy thought. "I _have_ to do this!" he reminded her. "And we are running out of time!"

"I won't let you!" Tiana protested, grabbing Naveen's arm like she was stronger than him.

"Tiana, stop making this harder than—" Naveen broke off, clenching his fists. "It's the only way to get you your dream!"

"My dream…?" echoed Tiana dazedly, as he shook her off and turned his back on the frog he loved, heading back towards Charlotte. Did Tiana really think he was going to kiss and marry Charlotte because he _wanted_ to?

"My dream wouldn't be complete…without you in it."

Naveen stopped walking.

He just stood there for a second.

Then he turned around and stared at Tiana.

Had she actually said that? Naveen had never had much of an imagination, but he couldn't blame it for coming up with something like that.

But Tiana, who was looking at him with that same soft look he'd seen the other day, smiled and shrugged. "I love you, Naveen."

This time he'd actually seen the words come out of her mouth. In another second he was beside her. "Warts and all?" he breathed, taking her hands.

Tiana dimpled and squeezed his fingers, resting her forehead against his. "Warts and all."

They might have stood that way forever, but Naveen heard sniffles behind him and cringed. Just because he was used to dealing with women scorned—those which Hell hath no fury like—didn't mean he ever enjoyed it.

But "All my life," said Charlotte, "I've read about True Love in fairytales—and, Tia, you _found_ it!" She wiped away another happy tear and held out a hand to Naveen. "I'll kiss him—for you, honey—no marriage required!"

Climbing into Charlotte's hands, Naveen puckered up, buttercup, with gusto this time. He knew Tiana wouldn't mind.

The clock struck midnight, and Naveen and Charlotte opened their eyes wide and looked at each other, horrified.

"Oh, my word! Uh—maybe that ol' clock's just a little fast!" Charlotte cried, covering Naveen in kisses.

Naveen, who was still small and green enough for Charlotte to hold, shrugged at her. It was no use.

This time, Charlotte's tears weren't happy. "I'm so sorry!" she cried.

"It's all right, Lotte, honey!" Tiana exclaimed (Naveen was busy rubbing lipstick off of his face). "We'll be frogs together. Everything's gonna be just—"

"Tiana! Naveen!"

"…fine," finished Tiana weakly as the two frogs, forgetting Charlotte, hopped down the street to meet the running alligator.

"Louis?" Naveen asked, more unsettled than he cared to admit by the look on his friend's face. "What is it?"

Louis lowered his cupped claws to the pavement. "Shadow man done laid poor Ray low," he moaned, ignoring the cry that came from Tiana and went through Naveen like he was hearing the bad news a second time. "He's hurting awful bad."

Prone on a discarded Mardi Gras feather, Ray's bulbous abdomen was crushed and he breathed unevenly, but he seemed so peaceful as his eyelids fluttered open and he looked at them. Tiana reached out a finger and gently stroked his forehead.

"Hey, _chèrie_," sighed Ray. "How come you're…still…?"

"We're staying frogs, Ray," Tiana told him.

"And," added Naveen, squeezing Tiana's hand as she squeezed her eyes shut as though trying to make tears go away, "we are staying together."

"Oh, _très bien_." Ray's face lit up a little in a semblance of his old smile. "I…like that…very much. Evangeline…like that, too."

Tiana was squeezing both of Naveen's hands hard by now. In addition to his own sadness, Naveen felt like he was feeling Tiana's, too: She and Ray had gravitated towards one another as friends just like Naveen and Louis had done.

Naveen couldn't have said exactly when Tiana started crying so hard because the rain came pouring down.

Evangeline was still reflected in Ray's eyes when they turned glassy and remote.

_**Next: HOME, in which Tiana and Naveen have some time to themselves for once.**_


	22. Home

**I LIIIIIIIIIIVE!**

**I'm sorry I haven't updated in so long! The only excuse I can really offer is: college. I'm still getting used to it.**

**And I'm sorry this chapter is a bit short. It's really more of a filler chapter.**

**Fortunately, I plan on finishing this story soon, updating with equal rapidity, and here it'll be in its complete glory…although I do feel a bit guilty about my motives. **

**You see, it's not **_**just **_**that now I have time to finish ****The Green You Need****, it's also that I have another project or two in the wings. Two of them are already up, and you may be waiting for updates on those, too. I don't know. ****The Most Peculiar Mademoiselle****, and ****Gilbert Loves Anne of Green Gables****. I fully intend to continue work on both of those, although ****Mademoiselle**** is my pet project so that'll go faster than otherwise. **

**But there's a certain movie I've been watching over and over again lately (twice in theaters, countless times illegally), and given my annoying habit of writing from the point of view of favorite Disney princes, maybe you can imagine whose story is going to follow Naveen's…**

**XXII. HOME**

"WHAT I WANT TO KNOW," Tiana teased, "is when on earth Prince Playboy disappeared and Prince Charming took his place."

They were reclining on a lilypad. That is, Naveen was reclining; Tiana—who, after all, had not thrown away practicality and order altogether—was sitting next to him.

Together with Louis, Naveen and Tiana had returned to the bayou for the double purpose of coming home—since two frogs really couldn't live in New Orleans even if they'd been human once—and bearing Ray's body to his relatives. They would give him a proper send-off, so to speak, on the next day.

Considering the depressing occasion, Tiana's light mood should have seemed rude and insulting to Ray's memory. But Naveen could hear the slight tone of something like panic in her voice. On the way back to the bayou, while Tiana was asleep, Naveen and Louis had had a long conversation about Ray and how much they missed him. While Louis had bawled like a baby, and Naveen who was not much of a crier had simply ached inside, they both admitted to feeling better by remembering him. But Naveen supposed Tiana's way of dealing without Ray was by pretending nothing was wrong. He thought tomorrow at the funeral things might be different—she could hardly ignore Ray's death when his body was there in front of her—but for now, Naveen would try and help her feel better.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Naveen joked right back. "I don't even know any princes with those names. _Mine_ is Naveen."

Tiana managed a small laugh. "I mean, when did you fall in love with me? I mean, given the way you used to be, it sort of came as a big surprise."

Naveen considered this, looking sideways at Tiana. It wasn't as simple an answer as he'd initially thought. "I _knew_ I did when Mama Odie told me about digging deeper…but I think when I actually loved you was when I taught you how to dance."

Tiana smiled and took his hand. "You know what I think made me love you?"

"My mincing skills?"

"No." Tiana smiled down at him. "It was when you told me on the steamboat that you'd do anything to help me with my dream. You know," she added slyly. "When you tried to propose to me."

Naveen bolted upright. "You _knew_?" he exclaimed. "And you let me fumble around—and—and I had to stop because you needed Miss La Bouff's money—Tiana—"

"No! I didn't know," Tiana told him calmly, looking hurt as she added, "You really think I'd lead you on like that? I'm not the heartbreaker, here!"

Naveen subsided. "Sorry," he muttered. "It just—would have been horrible…how did you find out, then?"

"Ray," Tiana said simply, and Naveen was surprised to see that she didn't start crying after she said his name. "I take it he helped you?"

"He did." Naveen squeezed Tiana's hand, twining her webbed fingers through his. Tiana squeezed back, and they fell silent for a moment.

But only a moment. Naveen noticed that the panicked look was beginning to creep back into Tiana's eyes. He cast about for something to say, but Tiana beat him to the punch.

"So," she began mock-casually, "You said it turned out that your butler'd disguised himself as _you_. But—how is that even possible?I mean, he's not exactly tall enough—or skinny enough either," she added.

"There was a sort of voodoo amulet," Naveen explained, as best he could. "When it was filled with my blood—" he checked momentarily, as Tiana made noises indicating horror and disgust "—Laurence would put it on, and it made him look like me. From what I understood, Facilier wanted him to marry Miss La Bouff so that they could take her money."

"Poor Lotte," Tiana shuddered. "But…wait, what about Big Daddy…?" The look on Naveen's face, it seemed, was enough to make her understand, or guess. "Well, I'm just even gladder that the Shadow Man didn't succeed, then! When I broke that amulet myself—"

"You _did_?" Naveen exclaimed. "No one told me anything!"

"Well, circumstances intervened, didn't they?" said practical Tiana. "And it's not like anyone else _could_ have told you. Anyway," she continued, "these big purple masks showed up out of nowhere…"

"Were they singing?"

Tiana looked apprehensive. "How did you know?"

Naveen just looked at her. He was trying to convey _I was turned into a frog by that man, remember? _in a raised eyebrow and pursed lips. Obviously, it worked, because Tiana went on.

"So they were singing, and Dr. Facilier started screaming something about needing a little more time—and about still having a 'froggy prince' in his custody, which was how I knew that that man marrying Lotte just couldn't be you. Somehow, I didn't think those masks were the sort of people he'd try a bluff on, you know?"

Naveen shuddered. A thought came to him, as they did increasingly frequently. "How did you get your hands on the amulet if Facilier was already there?"

Tiana hesitated, as if pondering how to phrase her answer. "Ray helped you, didn't he? He came zooming into the cemetery with that amulet, saying something about how it was proof that the man I saw marrying Lotte wasn't you. Then he told me to run. Of course," she added, displaying a small smile as if to ward off sad memories of Ray, "as I pointed out to you a few days ago, I think, frogs can't run. Which is probably why Facilier caught up to me. And he—"

Naveen waited for Tiana to continue. "What did he do?" he asked, his voice thick with panic and anger, as all sorts of horrifying conclusions to Tiana's sentence ran through his mind.

Tiana swallowed. "He turned me back into a human…"

"Oh." It was still surprising enough that Naveen was at a loss for words, but he was glad Facilier hadn't actually harmed Tiana.

"…and he brought my restaurant to life. He told me that if I just gave him the talisman, he'd give me my life and my dream—my daddy's dream, and mine. But—it was wrong. All wrong. It was too fancy. The guests were all rich. It was too quiet. There wasn't any jazz, none of my friends were there, and—" Tiana snuggled closer to Naveen "—neither were you. There was a man playing ukulele, and it wasn't you, and…I think that's the second time I knew I loved you."

Naveen leaned in to kiss Tiana, but she was still talking. "I tried to smash the amulet, and his shadow caught it. I don't know what Facilier was going to do with me, but he called me a 'slimy little frog,' and I told him," Tiana blushed, a strange look on a frog, "that it wasn't slime, it was mucus. And then I used my tongue to catch the amulet and crush it."

Naveen's shout of laughter was muffled as Tiana's lips closed over his.

_**Next: A CAJUN LOVE STORY**_**...or two.**


	23. A Cajun Love Story

**So I felt kind of bad about my first chapter back being pretty short, even though it was always going to be that short. So, here's the next, much longer chapter ahead of time. Enjoy.**

**-M.R.**

**XXIII. A CAJUN LOVE STORY**

IT WAS A DARK night, but not stormy, though it'd rained for almost three days now, and the sky was still thick with clouds. The foggy air was heavy and hot as a blanket, and as silent. Even the frogs and cicadas had ceased their chatter, as if out of respect for Ray—which, given how well-known he had been, was exactly the case.

And yet Naveen and Tiana traveled in a nimbus of soft gold light, the thick evening air stirred by the shushing of a thousand fireflies' wings. Borne across the water on Louis's back, the frogs each carried a lily as big as Tiana.

They were relieved to return to solid ground; all the way to the riverbank, Louis's body had shaken with silent sobs. Tiana had been equally silent, tears flowing down her face steadily. Naveen, who was not a crying sort of frog, squeezed her shoulder in some semblance of comfort and felt his heart ache as much as his dry eyes, as much for Ray as for Tiana, and Louis too, for that matter.

"Once upon a time," began a firefly Naveen recognized as Remy, a cousin of Ray's, "there was a beautiful girl named Evangeline. She was in love with her best friend, Gabriel, and the two were engaged to be married.

"But soldiers came to drive the villagers from their homes. In the confusion, Evangeline and Gabriel were separated. Evangeline and her people were put into ships and taken across the sea to this bayou, where some of them, including Evangeline, were dropped off.

"Evangeline wept for her love, and wanted nothing more than to be reunited with Gabriel once more. She left the bayou and traveled for many days, and then she got to Gabriel's father's house. He told her Gabriel had just left in search of her. So Evangeline followed her Gabriel. She didn't get too hungry or sleepy, because she was so happy, and the faster she traveled, the sooner she could catch up to Gabriel.

"But Evangeline couldn't catch up to him. For years and years she followed in his footsteps. She'd find his night's fire the next morning. Or passers-by would tell her they'd seen him down the road apiece. Still, Evangeline never saw Gabriel.

"The older Evangeline got, the easier she got tired or hungry. She thought she would never see Gabriel again, and so Evangeline never wanted to marry. But she was a kind person, so she became a nun. She took care of people, feeding them and nursing them and giving them shelter and teaching the little ones.

"One day, when Evangeline was an old woman, many people were dying of a terrible sickness. Evangeline nursed as many people as she could. One of them was an old man, and when she looked into his eyes, they recognized each other. The man was Gabriel. Evangeline was so happy to see Gabriel again, but it was too late. He died in her arms."

Dropping his story voice, Remy addressed everyone in a different tone. "Ray was in love with a star he called Evangeline. I don't know why he called her that. None of us do. But after the story ends, maybe Evangeline died and was with Gabriel forever, and was happy. Ray's 'story' is over, too. But he's happy now. He would laugh at us, if he saw us crying."

Naveen noticed Tiana was not the only one to swipe at her tears, which the tragic tale had caused to flow afresh. Still, no one could really smile at these words. Remy's own hopefully-cheerful tone faltered, and he returned to the crowd.

The fireflies hovered above the earthbound trio in silent expectation, save for Remy and his brother, Randy. They supported between them the green-wrapped shroud, cradled in another, bigger leaf. Quietly they flew to water level, dipping their burden into the bayou, and released it.

Louis took a step, shuddering breath as he sat back on his haunches and raised Giselle the trumpet to his lips. The notes rang out clear and fine, but the musician in Naveen picked out the strain caused by Louis's shortness of breath, which made the mournful melody all the more painful. Naveen shivered, his heart aching even more.

The more the fog dispersed, the farther the solemn gathering was able to watch the leaf boat sail, carried on a current though the water seemed calm, before it disappeared altogether.

It did not immediately enter the mind of anyone present that there was no reason to stay any longer. They might have remained that way forever, but for the breeze that picked up, tickling Naveen's skin, banishing what was left of the fog, and which made a small hole in the looming gray clouds above. The sky lightened, little by little, as if it were already very early morning.

Naveen found himself thinking about Ray as if the firefly could hear him. Maybe he could. Maybe he was happy for Naveen and Tiana, and for Louis. Naveen hoped that Ray was happy for Ray, himself, whatever had happened to him when he had died, and that someone on the other side (Naveen shuddered. He hoped the "other side" that ray had gone to was much, much different from Dr. Facilier's) would let Ray down easy, about Evangeline being a star, and all.

Suddenly Tiana gasped and leaned forward, Naveen's hand falling limply from her shoulder. She wasn't the only one: Sounds of amazement, little ones from the fireflies and big ones from Louis, surrounded Naveen, jolting him from his preoccupation. He shook the mental fog from his mind and looked around at everyone, whose eyes were directed at the cloudy sky. So Naveen looked, too.

The first thing he saw was the moon, not full or small or new, just about average. It was, maybe, shining brighter than usual, though the stars, diamonds to its pearl, were definitely vying for equal attention. Naveen's eyes sought Evangeline—and his jaw dropped.

Where there had once been one big, bright serene star, there now glimmered two. The way the stars' beams shone, Naveen fancied they were touching, as if they had hands. And, silly though he suspected it might be, Naveen had no doubt as to what to call the new star.

After all…where else could it have come from?

Looking down at Tiana, he saw that she was thinking the exact same thing. Twining hands, Naveen and Tiana smiled, perfectly happy for the first time in several days, up at Evangeline and Ray.

.:..:..:.

FOR THE FIRST TIME in as long, Tiana slept peacefully in Naveen's arms. But Naveen, who had never had too much trouble sleeping even in the face of a problem, was restless.

Why? he asked himself. Everyone he cared about was happy. Ray was with Evangeline, Louis, as the alligator had confided in Naveen, was no longer a friendless wanderer unable to share his love of jazz, and Tiana loved Naveen. His parents, and Nik…Naveen's mind lightly touched on them, and shied away.

Was that it? Did he actually miss his parents? Because Naveen definitely missed Nik, there was no question about it. Naveen had trouble thinking of any reason for missing his parents. Hell, he didn't really know them well enough to have anything to miss _about_ them.

And then Naveen remembered the warm handclasp, the sincere and blunt praise which his father was wont to bestow on a son who had just done him proud, and the way that, despite her detachment, Naveen now realized that his mother had sincerely loved them all, even if she was pretty bad at showing it. He supposed that was the case for his father, too, and maybe a lot of other people: Not everyone showed love in the same way, and maybe some people never did.

And if Naveen's parents had truly loved him, how much pain had he caused them before they felt they must cut him off?

He'd probably deserved it. He also probably would never see his family again, now that he was an outcast _and_ a frog. But…Naveen shifted restlessly. He wished his family could just know that he had changed as much on the inside as he had on the outside. If—

"Prince Froggy!"

Naveen screamed. He was pretty sure he sounded like a girl. But that wasn't even the scariest part. No, the reason he'd screamed like a girl was looming inches from his face. "M-mama Odie?"

"I thought you'd figured out what you needed!" bellowed the voodoo priestess.

Naveen glanced around at Tiana, concerned that she'd wake up, but she was sound asleep. Funny. He'd've thought his scream would've done the trick even if Mama Odie hadn't. Reluctantly, he looked back at Mama Odie. "I did!" he said defensively. "I needed to, uh, love Tiana. And be loved. And I am," he added, unable to keep a note of triumph out of his voice. "Tiana loves me back. That's all there is to it."

Mama Odie raised an eyebrow.

"…right?" added Naveen hastily.

He flinched from surprise as Mama Odie suddenly busted out laughing. "Y'all forgot one important thing. What about that sweet little ring you made her? And the dinner, too," she continued, making a noise which in another being Naveen might have called a giggle. "No wonder that girl fell in love with y'all."

Naveen didn't have to think long to remember. "I dropped it," he said ruefully. The recollection made him want to demand of Mama Odie why, if she'd somehow seen all that happened on the way back to New Orleans, probably in that magic gumbo pot (well. Bathtub) of hers, she hadn't stopped the shadows from abducting him?

Although being a frog and falling in love hadn't made him a more patient man, Naveen was definitely a little bit wiser, so he didn't say any of this. He was relieved when Mama Odie spoke up. "No, you didn't."

Naveen went from relieved to flabbergasted in the space of a second. "Yes, I did."

the old woman continued as if she didn't even hear him. Was she going deaf, in addition to her blindness? That would explain why she talked so loudly, right?

Although when Naveen stopped to think about it, he had a suspicion that Mama Odie talked loudly just to startle people. And frogs. "But I _did_ drop it…"

"You did drop what?"

"Huh?" Naveen started. He was lying on a lilypad, and Tiana was leaning over him, her hand on his shoulder.

"You were talking in your sleep, Naveen," Tiana said. "Something about dropping Mama Odie…?"

"_Achidanza_," said Naveen. Really, he was at a loss for further speech.

Tiana giggled. "It's okay. Remember the first time we slept next to each other, and you heard _me_ talking in my sleep?"

"I do," Naveen agreed, diverted. "It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. And now, look at us!"

"Mm-hmm," Tiana agreed, yawning. "We couldn't _stand_ each other then. And now I'm sleeping next to you and asking about _you_ talking in your sleep. Speaking of which," her eyes took on a mischievous gleam, "If I were you, I wouldn't try to pick up Mama Odie in the first place, even if I was a human prince. She looks pretty heavy." Tiana's brow furrowed. "Naveen?"

"Tiana?"

"Why are you holding a walnut?"

Naveen looked down at his arms, which were, in fact, wrapped around a walnut like it was…well, like it was Tiana. "That," he stalled, even as his sleepy mind realized the truth, "is an excellent question."

Tiana looked nonplussed. Maybe she, too, had caught on to how possessively he was holding a walnut instead of _her_. "What _is_ it with you and walnuts?" she demanded. "Weren't you holding one the other night on the steamboat? I mean, I absolutely _love_ walnuts—I even tried to make pralines with them once. It just wasn't the same. Pecans are _so _much better. Anyways, I have no idea how you knew I liked them—but I really don't think now's the time for a snack…" Then a strange gleam came into her eyes.

Could Tiana figure it out on her own? Naveen didn't wait to find out. "Tiana," he exclaimed, flinging himself down on one knee so hard he was sure to be bruised the next day, "I hope you know this already but I don't know what else to say to you except for what I know people say when they do this: I love you. You are the most important person—frog—you mean more to me than anyone else. Which is why I am asking you…" he began to open the walnut shell—and shut it again. "No, wait! That was too soon. 'Which is why I am asking you'…to marry me." Naveen opened the walnut shell again, and the amused look on Tiana's face softened.

"Oh, my goodness," she breathed. "Naveen? You made this the night we were on the steamboat, didn't you? Ray said something about a ring…and you've managed to hold onto it, all this time?"

"Um," said Naveen. "Yes?"

Tiana surprised him by tackling him to the floor and kissing him breathless. "That," she giggled between kisses, "was the funniest proposal I ever saw—and the cutest," she told him, forestalling the objection Naveen might have made if he weren't being kissed. "And my answer is—"

There were suddenly screams and water and frog limbs, and Naveen surfaced, realizing that between his dramatic kneeling and Tiana's enthusiastic reaction, they'd somehow managed to tip their little lilypad over a small ledge into a quiet pool of water. He scrabbled around in the water frantically. Walnuts could float, right?

"Over here," Tiana called. Naveen turned around and swam towards Tiana, who pulled him up onto the new lilypad with her left hand, so that the ring she'd put on herself was right in his face.

"You were saying?" Naveen asked conversationally, as if he didn't have algae all over his body and a water lily drooping over one eye—and as if he wasn't heart-poundingly terrified that Tiana might think of some last-minute, practical reason why they shouldn't get married, after all. He couldn't think of any, but then he was not the practical one, was he? On a sudden impulse Naveen handed the lily to Tiana, who beamed and hugged him.

"My answer is yes," Tiana told him firmly.

"Ah," said Naveen, just as casually but a lot more relieved. True love was all very wonderful, but seeing the one you cared about actually wearing a ring you gave her was a sort of bonus joy, Naveen decided. "Was it the flower or the ring?"

"Neither," Tiana said mock-sternly, swatting him with the lily. "It was you."

_**Next: BLUE SKIES AND SUNSHINE**_**, in which Naveen and Tiana get married, and find just what Mama Odie guaranteed.**


	24. Blue Skies and Sunshine

**I guess it's partly my fault, because of my long silence, but I'd expected more reviews, at least from those who have this story on alert. To quote a favorite Disney character of mine: "After all we've been through together? Ouch." ****Oh well, here's the next chapter anyways, because I sort of can't stop writing now I've begun again…which is a good thing, right? I estimate that this story should be done by the end of the month, which is DEFINITELY good news, because—well, you'll see why soon enough. Yay!**

**And I can't believe I almost left this out, what with posting _today_ of all days: _HAPPY MARDI GRAS!_**

**-M.R.**

**XXIV. BLUE SKIES AND SUNSHINE**

THE NICE THING ABOUT marrying a frog, Naveen decided, was that there was definitely much less effort to be made in organizing a wedding ceremony.

In former times, Naveen'd been pretty damn terrified of marriage. This was partly due to the concept itself, and partly due to his expectations of a bride. He'd assumed that in due course, his parents would arrange for him to be tied down, not only to some uninteresting, unattractive noblewoman or princess, but also _only_ to her. He'd be expected to be faithful to that woman. Sure, a lot of men didn't obey their marriage vows, but from what Naveen had observed in Maldonia, those vows made one's sexual exploits a lot harder to arrange. Hell, he'd had a hard enough time being sworn to a single doma, a contract not quite as binding as marriage.

But Naveen had, over the course of only about a week, left that spoiled prince behind him. He was in love with Tiana, and that made all the difference in the world. Instead of changing his life for the worse, marrying her would, Naveen was certain, be the final, most important step in the biggest change he'd ever made in his life. And as for staying faithful to Tiana…Naveen's lips curved upwards in a slow smile. That was something he looked forward to.

The thought made him all the more impatient—a characteristic of Naveen's that had _not_ changed. He fidgeted beside Mama Odie, a cousin of Beau's quivering at his throat in lieu of a real tie, surrounded by bayou animals—strangers and friends alike, all come to wish him and Tiana well.

The bayou, which had echoed with conversation, now hushed as Louis swam towards Naveen. As he reached the frog, Tiana alighted from Louis's back. Naveen noticed that she was almost as simply adorned as himself: Butterflies and flowers formed a garland around her head, from which cascaded a veil of spiders' silk. He wondered if Tiana was as grateful for the simplicity as he. Weren't women generally intrigued by the clothing and such that went with a wedding? Not that he'd really be surprised if Tiana was different, Naveen reassured himself, his heart swelling with love and pride as he took her hand.

"We're all here," began Mama Odie, "to get these two froggies hitched!"

Cheers.

"A week ago, Prince Froggy over here got himself turned into a frog by the Shadow Man…"

Hissing.

"…so he got Miss Froggy to kiss him! But then she turned into a frog herse'f! So they came down to me for a fix and found out they just needed love."

"Is this how weddings usually go?" whispered Naveen to Tiana, embarrassed, as Mama Odie went on with her story.

Tiana shrugged. Obviously she'd never been to one before either. At any rate, her face was as red as Naveen's, a shade that warred with the green skin of a frog.

After cracking a few jokes at their expense, Mama Odie finally got down to business. "Prince Froggy, do you take Tiana as your wife? And will you be faithful to her and take care of her and love and obey her?"

"Um," said Naveen, trying to keep up with the deluge of questions. "Yes, yes, yes, yes—obey?" He didn't dare voice his objection, not in front of Mama Odie AND Tiana, but he was pretty sure that wasn't usually part of marriage vows. Naveen glanced at Tiana, who mock-glared at him. It wasn't really helpful. "Um, I will try?" he suggested, squeezing her hand teasingly.

Tiana laughed, and Mama Odie nodded. "That'll do. Now Miss Froggy, do you take Naveen as your husband, and will you appreciate him and take care of him and love and guide him?"

Naveen looked quickly at Tiana, his mouth open to mouth the word _guide? _in indignation, and saw that her face was lit up as though from within. Her eyes were shining, and her smile was huge as she faced Naveen full on and said decisively, "I will."

They exchanged rings. Mama Odie produced a simple golden band similar to Tiana's—except, of course, without the pearl bead—and Naveen found that the cool metal was not, in fact, the mental equivalent of handcuffs (as he had so often feared). Tiana giggled as he slid her ring onto her finger.

"Is that it?" Naveen asked, surprised, as the animals began cheering, including the moth at his neck, who piped, "Congratulations," and flew away.

"That's it!" Mama Odie agreed. "So by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you frog and wife. Get to it, hopalongs!" she winked, waving a dismissive hand at Naveen. "Give your lovely bride some sugar."

Naveen didn't need to be told twice. He cupped Tiana's head in his free hand, pulling her close.

He'd thought he remembered what it was like to kiss Tiana: the softness of her lips, the smell of her skin (after a week in a swamp, how did she still smell like lavender?), but memory was nothing to reality.

This kiss was nothing like their first. In fact it was nothing like any kiss Naveen'd ever had.

At the touch of Tiana's lips, lights burst in front of Naveen's closed eyes. He felt lightheaded, as if floating; as the kiss deepened, he and Tiana clung to each other as the only solid things in the world. Naveen ignored the whooping and whistling from the crowd, until his breathlessness had more to do with lack of oxygen than with the kiss.

Gently pulling away, Naveen opened his eyes and smiled down at his wife—_his wife_. He was so wrapped up in the pride and joy that accompanied those two little words. She was so beautiful, and—Naveen did a double take.

Yes, Tiana was still there; yes, she was still his wife; and yes, she was still the most beautiful thing Naveen had ever seen. But instead of looking down at Tiana the frog, he saw Tiana the woman.

Reeling from this discovery, Naveen looked down at their clasped hands. They were actually hands! Not only that, he and Tiana were considerably taller than they'd be seconds ago—and though they were dressed (Tiana in a beautiful ballgown, Naveen in a doublet and trousers) in a green reminiscent of a frog's skin, they were undeniably _human_.

A hand touched his cheek. Naveen looked back at Tiana. She was, as had only happened a few times before over the course of their time together, genuinely speechless as she held her hand, first to his face, and then to her own cheek, as if making sure they were alive as well as human.

And then, simultaneously, they smiled.

Naveen, although he was overjoyed, just didn't understand what'd happened, exactly. But a voice broke into his thoughts: "Like I told y'all, kissing a princess breaks the spell!" Mama Odie reminded them.

"Once you became my wife," Naveen realized suddenly, "that made you—"

"—a princess!" gasped Tiana. "You just kissed yourself…a _princess_!"

Naveen chuckled at Tiana's excitement. "And," he said, tilting her chin towards him, "I'm about to do it again."

Tiana lasted about five seconds into the kiss before she started giggling. "That was _such_ a cheesy thing to say!" she sputtered.

"Cheese," Naveen considered. "I don't know about you, Tiana, but I am tired of eating bugs."

"And so am I," joked Tiana. "Whaddya say we head back to New Orleans?"

"How?" Naveen pointed out.

Tiana jumped straight into the knee-deep bayou water, disregarding her dress; but due to some magic, it didn't even get dirty. "We walk." She grinned at Naveen, who at least looked somewhat relieved by the magical cleanliness of their new clothing. "Come on. What're you worried about?"

Stepping into the muddy water, Naveen took her outstretched hand and smiled. "Nothing at all."

_**Next: EXPLANATIONS, some of which are demanded and some of which are deserved.**_


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